Rafale deal to be inked tomorrow

Finally, the 7.878 billion euros deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets — the first fighter jet deal in 20 years — will be signed on Friday. The government gave its formal okay to the final deal on Thursday that will be signed in the presence of French defence minister Jean Yves Le Drian.

Mr Le Drian will arrive in the national capital on Thursday along with the CEOs of Dassault Aviation, Thales and MBDA and top French government officials.

According to defence sources, the deal for the aircraft, besides a 50 per cent offset clause, will save nearly 750 million euros than what was being quoted by the French side in January 2016. The Narendra Modi government scrapped the earlier deal.

The final deal now will translate to at least three billion Euros worth of business for Indian companies, both big and small, and generating hundreds of jobs in India through offsets. The Rafale fighter jets, deliveries of which will start in 36 months and finished in 66 months from the date contract is inked, comes equipped with state-of-the-art missiles like Meteor and Scalp that will give the IAF a capability that had been sorely missing in its arsenal. The contract for the deal was already cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security earlier. The price of the contract was fixed in May, sources said. Sources said the cost of just the 36 aircraft works out to be 3.42 billion Euros while the armaments cost about 710 million Euros. Indian specific changes, including integration of Israeli helmet mounted displays, will cost another 1,700 million Euros. Besides other features that make the Rafale a strategic weapon in the hands of the IAF is the Beyond Visual Range Meteor air-to-air missile with a range in excess of 150 km. Pakistan currently has only a BVR with 80 km range. Its integration on the Rafale jets will mean the IAF can hit targets inside both Pakistan and across the northern and eastern borders while still staying within India’s own territorial boundary.

Scalp, a long-range air-to-ground cruise missile with a range in excess of 300 km, also gives the IAF an edge over its adversaries.