Government sources in India and France confirmed Jan. 31 that French firm Dassault has won a contract to sell its Rafale fighter jets to India. (Dassault Aviation)
NEW DELHI — Negotiations to build Rafale fighter jets for the Indian Air Force won’t be complete for at least nine months, following news that the state-owned company tapped to build the jets in India has missed a deadline for filing its license production evaluation report.
Sources in the Indian Defence Ministry said Defence Minister A.K. Antony had directed the bureaucrats to finalize the contract to build Rafales within the next three months, but it cannot be done because state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) has yet to submit the license production plan, delaying negotiations by another six months.
India on Jan. 31 declared the Dassault Rafale the preferred bidder over the Eurofighter Typhoon, setting the French company up for a deal involving 126 aircraft and prompting soul-searching among the Eurofighter nations.
The Ministry of Defence last week also asked HAL to focus on building airframes, engines, and system and weapons integration of Rafale aircraft rather than on meeting its portion of the $5.5 billion offset requirements as part of the deal.
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Its taking to much time. I thing IAF shown its first intention to buy 126 aircraft some where 10 year back and we are yet to acquire single aircraft. As per current scenario India will get its first Rafale after 2016-17. And as per current plan Mig series aircraft will start remove from IAF service by 2016-17. Also Tejas Mark II will not be ready for induction by that time. It will be really challenging scenario for IAF comparative to PAF and PRAF.
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