India may reconsider $20 billion French Rafale jet deal in favor of Russia

[Lord ZeN]

India wants France to stick to the original terms of its deal to buy Rafale fighter jets, or it might call it off. If the manufacturers fail to comply, India may opt for the Russian designed Su-30 currently being produced domestically.

France’s Dassault Aviation still has a chance to ink the huge $20 billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract to deliver 126 Rafale fighter jets to the Indian Air Force if the company complies with the contractor’s original demands, India’s Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Monday.

“Ultimately, it has to fit the RFP (request for proposal)... if it does not fit the RFP, nothing can be done,”said Minister Parrikar in an interview with the Headlines Today TV channel.

The Rafale deal should be either finalized or ditched before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits France and Germany in April, Parrikar said, adding that India has invited representatives of Dassault to discuss the details of the deal.

France’s Dassault Aviations won the MMRCA contract in 2012. The original conditions implied production of the initial 18 aircraft in France, with the remaining 108 to be manufactured at the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) facility in India under a technology transfer agreement. The license for 108 aircraft to be produced in India supposed 74 Rafales would be rolled out in a single-seat version and 34 aircrafts would be twin-seat.

An Indian air force Sukhoi 30MKI (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)



But things have changed over the three years of negotiation, with the price tag rising from $12 billion to $20 billion. Also, so far Dassault has been reluctant to guarantee that HAL would have a license to build 108 fighters in India, as required by the original IAF tender and in the guidelines of the “Make in India” national policy.

As the Rafale deal is dragging on, Parrikar said the Russian-designed Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet that have been produced in India since early 2000 offer a viable alternative.

“The Sukhoi 30 choice is always there. What I mean to say is: upgrade the Sukhoi 30, make it more capable,” said India’s Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar.

The Su-30MKI fighter was specially developed for India by Russia’s Sukhoi Design Bureau and 200 aircraft has already entered IAF service as of August 2014.

The minister also made it clear that the IAF is concerned with the fighter costs. “It is not always… go and purchase it. A cost effective purchase is also important,” he said.

The average cost of a Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet is approximately $56 million, whereas France’s Rafale fighter varies from €64 million to €90 million ($75-$106 million).

India may reconsider $20 billion French Rafale jet deal in favor of Russia — RT News

 

[cerberus]

India wants France to stick to the original terms of its deal to buy Rafale fighter jets, or it might call it off. If the manufacturers fail to comply, India may opt for the Russian designed Su-30 currently being produced domestically.

France’s Dassault Aviation still has a chance to ink the huge $20 billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract to deliver 126 Rafale fighter jets to the Indian Air Force if the company complies with the contractor’s original demands, India’s Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Monday.

“Ultimately, it has to fit the RFP (request for proposal)... if it does not fit the RFP, nothing can be done,”said Minister Parrikar in an interview with the Headlines Today TV channel.

The Rafale deal should be either finalized or ditched before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits France and Germany in April, Parrikar said, adding that India has invited representatives of Dassault to discuss the details of the deal.

France’s Dassault Aviations won the MMRCA contract in 2012. The original conditions implied production of the initial 18 aircraft in France, with the remaining 108 to be manufactured at the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) facility in India under a technology transfer agreement. The license for 108 aircraft to be produced in India supposed 74 Rafales would be rolled out in a single-seat version and 34 aircrafts would be twin-seat.

An Indian air force Sukhoi 30MKI (AFP Photo/Indranil Mukherjee)



But things have changed over the three years of negotiation, with the price tag rising from $12 billion to $20 billion. Also, so far Dassault has been reluctant to guarantee that HAL would have a license to build 108 fighters in India, as required by the original IAF tender and in the guidelines of the “Make in India” national policy.

As the Rafale deal is dragging on, Parrikar said the Russian-designed Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet that have been produced in India since early 2000 offer a viable alternative.

“The Sukhoi 30 choice is always there. What I mean to say is: upgrade the Sukhoi 30, make it more capable,” said India’s Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar.

The Su-30MKI fighter was specially developed for India by Russia’s Sukhoi Design Bureau and 200 aircraft has already entered IAF service as of August 2014.

The minister also made it clear that the IAF is concerned with the fighter costs. “It is not always… go and purchase it. A cost effective purchase is also important,” he said.

The average cost of a Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet is approximately $56 million, whereas France’s Rafale fighter varies from €64 million to €90 million ($75-$106 million).

India may reconsider $20 billion French Rafale jet deal in favor of Russia — RT News

Defence sectary is on his way to France it will be final in before March-April

 

[Lord ZeN]

Defence sectary is on his way to France it will be final in before March-April

Lets hope it gets finalized before April 2015. If not then the deal should be dropped. Actually India has many options in this regard.
1. We can Increase the size our Su-30MKI fleet to no less than 350 by procuring the first 50 Super Su-30MKIs & upgrade the in-service Su-30MKIs in successive tranches to Super Sukhoi-standard.

2)We also have the Euro-fighter option. The British seems to be desperate to get the deal. We can actually buy around 60 Euro-fighter & upgrade Jaguar IS to DARIN 3-standard from 68 to 125 & then re-engine the entire fleet with Honeywell-supplied F-125 turbofans with same amount of money as that of Rafael deal.

 

[gslv]

i believe Dassault doenst have other customers , i believe they will be pretty stupid if they let this go.

 

[Maravan]

Reluctance in RFP terms aren't acceptable.... france isn't willing to guarantee the fighters built in india, if they don't want to guarantee they shouldn't have participated in the tender at all.... if they violate the RFP conditions after shortlisting, they shouldn't be allowed to participate in future tenders... Their credibility is not trust worthy...

 

[Bang Galore]

i believe Dassault doenst have other customers , i believe they will be pretty stupid if they let this go.

They have been stupid about this for a long time. The question now is how far out has that "stupidity" taken them and whether there is any way back? Essentially they got designated L1 on the basis of their financial offer which they want to change now. CAG would murder the government if they allowed that, Parrikar is no idiot.

 

[SrNair]

Huh French What did they think ?
Though AK Antony was a concerned man .His concerns about MMRCA was genuine.Now I got why hedidnt sign that deal .
Narendra Modi also understood that .That is why he handpicked a man like Parrikar for defence post.
We need business ,fair business .Not sweet diplomacy.
It was the Dassault that made this folly .Now they will have to consider the Indian demands .Otherwise tjey can say bye bye to the 20 billion$ deal.
Super MKI can do the trick.
The ball is in French court they can take it or leave it.

 

[trident2010]

Super MKI's would be awesome. 500+ super MKI's will create havoc !!

 

[mujhaidind]

Frenchies must be mad! Since they already paid paybacks to previous politicians it seems.

 

[anonymus]

Lets hope it gets finalized before April 2015. If not then the deal should be dropped. Actually India has many options in this regard.
1. We can Increase the size our Su-30MKI fleet to no less than 350 by procuring the first 50 Super Su-30MKIs & upgrade the in-service Su-30MKIs in successive tranches to Super Sukhoi-standard.

2)We also have the Euro-fighter option. The British seems to be desperate to get the deal. We can actually buy around 60 Euro-fighter & upgrade Jaguar IS to DARIN 3-standard from 68 to 125 & then re-engine the entire fleet with Honeywell-supplied F-125 turbofans with same amount of money as that of Rafael deal.

Sukhoi option is stupid. If IAF wanted Su-30, it would have never floated MMRCA tender. If India buys Su-30 in place of Rafale, IAF would be 100% Russian Airforce, in 10 years.

Also Assembly lines for Su-30 are running at full capacity, and would remain so till 2018 due to pending IAF orders. Su-30 would also not bring any new technology and industrial benefits. If we wanted to buy Rafale without ToT, we would have got 126 rafale in to 5-7 billion dollar range.

 

[Bang Galore]

Sukhoi option is stupid. If IAF wanted Su-30, it would have never floated MMRCA tender. If India buys Su-30 in place of Rafale, IAF would be 100% Russian Airforce, in 10 years.

Also Assembly lines for Su-30 are running at full capacity, and would remain so till 2018 due to pending IAF orders. Su-30 would also not bring any new technology and industrial benefits. If we wanted to buy Rafale without ToT, we would have got 126 rafale in to 5-7 billion dollar range.

There may be more to this than appears. There have been some rumours that the Russians made some sort of an offer when Putin came, we probably can assume that it was one of the reasons for any cancellation if it takes place. I don't think Parrikar is just shooting in the dark here, the tone became far more strident in the last month.

 

[Indo-guy]

There may be more to this than appears. There have been some rumours that the Russians made some sort of an offer when Putin came, we probably can assume that it was one of the reasons for any cancellation if it takes place. I don't think Parrikar is just shooting in the dark here, the tone became far more strident in the last month.

watch interview of Mr Parrikar with Mr Karan thapar posted by @Abingdonboy

here at Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar interview (VIDEO)

He quite emphatically asserts that Dassault has to stick to RFP ...rules out Eurofighter in event Rafale deal collapses and says ( although quite diplomatically) that India can make up with Su30 ....

 

[anonymus]

There may be more to this than appears. There have been some rumours that the Russians made some sort of an offer when Putin came, we probably can assume that it was one of the reasons for any cancellation if it takes place. I don't think Parrikar is just shooting in the dark here, the tone became far more strident in the last month.

Tone may be getting stringent due to continuous attempt by Dassault to play ugly tricks. First they tried to rope in Reliance which does not even know how to tighten Screws of a jet plane, now they are trying to go back on undertaking to subsume warranty of HAL manufactured Rafale.

While Rafale may be requirement of IAF, it does not mean that we should let French rob us blind.

But unless Russians have offered something unconventional like metallurgical knowhow of Engine blades, Su-30 should remain last option for IAF. In case of breakdown of talk with Dassault,buying Eurofighter would still make most sense.

F-18 gave best bang for bucks out of all MMRCA contenders, but selection of General electric engine for LCA meant that again half of our Airforce would be dependent on US, If F-18 is selected.

 

[Bang Galore]

Tone may be getting stringent due to continuous attempt by Dassault to play ugly tricks. First they tried to rope in Reliance which does not even know how to tighten Screws of a jet plane, now they are trying to go back on undertaking to subsume warranty of HAL manufactured Rafale.

While Rafale may be requirement of IAF, it does not mean that we should let French rob us blind.

But unless Russians have offered something unconventional like metallurgical knowhow of Engine blades, Su-30 should remain last option for IAF. In case of breakdown of talk with Dassault,buying Eurofighter would still make most sense.

F-18 gave best bang for bucks out of all MMRCA contenders, but selection of General electric engine for LCA meant that again half of our Airforce would be dependent on US, If F-18 is selected.

Dassault has been behaving funny for long. Either they got their calculations on the financials wrong and want to wiggle out of this or they think that they have MoD over the barrel and they will get anything & everything they want.

This contract was badly dealt with in the first place. Who the heck puts in light fighters in a contest with the twin engined ones & then does not allow the biggest advantage that the light fighters have -i.e. cost to even be a factor? Shortlist the two most expensive planes and then haggle over it? That's lousy planning to even my admittedly untrained eye. We should have kept the performance criteria to the minimum needed and then haggled over cost v/s benefit on everything additional. Atleast we would have known what we are paying for & what the alternative costing was. Imo, this was a dumb idea regardless of whether Rafale or EF was shortlisted. Rafale might well be doing us a big favour.

 

[salarsikander]

Hi,
I am totally with India at this moment, WTH were French thinking??? why did they bid in first place when they had to twist the proposal later. Its good, in short term IAF will suffer but over the Long term French defence industry's credibility will further go down the drain.
With Mistral off the book and MMRCA too, there is only bleak hope left for them