@PARIKRAMA So overall do you think this is a good deal from India's point of view and also do you see this as the final major foreign fighter acquisition, i.e everything now will be desi maal.....
My heart says this should be one of the final foreign acquisitions. But mind and logic differs..
The target for any jet with our indigenous design to even a foreign design needs to be understood from 2 points
- localisation aspect
- in terms of economic value
When i say localisation aspect, take for example an MKI.. its produced in India from raw materials and some limited things from Russian imports. But critically even though we have been producing a product as per a template, effectively we have not been able to replicate a similar effort for any other home made jet. I am not saying about reverse engineering or cloning or infringing IPRs but rather that the know how learned from such processes which we have been doing for a decade plus is of practically no use for us.
In terms of economic value, take the example of our own LCA. I for one would always advocate the LCA to be minimum 300+ jets. But critically, the economic value of what we are able to make locally and what we are dependent on abroad makes it a difficult choice unless we bridge this gap. if suppose we are able reach a stage where we make our own parts of economic value of closer to 80% and above, we can then reach a stage where we could slowly say only indigenous planes and no foreign acquisition.
Critically as of today - Engines, Radar, Missiles all have not reached a stage that we can deploy in frontline fighters. Astra should come soon but thats a BVR and we dont have our own WVR missile. ARM will be tested in coming times. Radar is still some time away and so the engine. i named just 3 and there are many more items running in 100s which we are yet not able to manufacture in India but these 3 have good economic value.
Thus, the MII is a golden chance to correct such a thing. I hope that in 2 decades, we would see our MIC to be effective in the component manufacturing to sub assembly to assembly level. The need is to raise the skill levels of the people in MIC and capability to go beyond the templated product and doing the routine job.
Rafale deal will be good if and only if we make sure we dont repeat the story of MKI. i am not just looking at technology absorption part but as i said i want to increase the skill level and capability level of our MIC particularly the pvt sector.
only time will say.. critically if i consider just FGFA, i dont think we would need any more foreign planes.
So add 15 years of Rafale line + 10 years of fgfa line and if result is remaining at same level of MIC capability and skill then even GOD cant help India.
