Final Political Push For #MMRCA Arrives Sunday, Five Key Developments

An exhausted French government is probably seeing it as fortuitous that new Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s first foreign guest will be French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who arrives tomorrow in Delhi on a two-day visit. He meets Parrikar on Monday late in the morning. This will be Le Drian’s third visit as his country’s defence minister to India.
In January, the Indian MoD and Dassault Aviation will mark three years since the Rafale won the final downselect in 2012. A contract for 126 Rafale fighters remains in final negotiations, heaving and jerking across over 24 months. As the French minister arrives for what Paris hopes will be the last political push required to see the deal through, here’s a quick round-up of six key developments that set out the state of play:

  1. On November 28 in Parliament, defence minister Parrikar made his most direct comment on the MMRCA negotiations, on which he is reported to have said, “Where defence acquisitions have almost come to end stage, we will stick to RFP (request for proposal).” In other words, while the new government focus would be on procurement routes that were reserved for Indian-made equipment or foreign equipment license-built in India, deals like the MMRCA would not be tinkered with. The MMRCA
  2. IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha has met defence minister Parrikar three times since the latter took office (the first was a courtesy call, and they didn’t talk shop). At both of the other two meetings, the IAF chief stressed the ‘No Plan-B‘ message initiated by his predecessor.
  3. While negotiations are largely complete, the issue of OEM liability for the 108 aircraft that HAL will build in Bangalore hasn’t been ironed out just yet. Reports on this issue have only touched the surface. It’s a far greater sticking point than its being reported to be (my next goes into specifics). This could take a while to fix. The French defence minister’s team will almost definitely have something to add on this. We’ll know Monday.
  4. As negotiations plod through the so-called final stretch, the political establishment is looking for a way to peg the Rafale deal as a shining package for Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign (he wants to do this with the navy’s P75I too). Apart from certain voices on the inside, the deal isn’t politically contentious given that negotiations took place largely under the previous government. In that light, I hear the present administration may be looking to own the deal better if it needs to.
  5. It’s been nine months since then defence minister A.K. Antony threw his hands up in Feb this year and said the Rafale deal had to be pushed back because of a funds crunch. His successor Arun Jaitley, who doubled usefully as Finance Minister for the six months he spent at the MoD, didn’t quite clarify on budgetary flexibility except to say that funds for all priority acquisitions would be made available. That’s saying a lot without saying anything at all. Like most things in the MMRCA so far.

7 thoughts on “Final Political Push For #MMRCA Arrives Sunday, Five Key Developments”

  1. @del – I think we got to get the complete assembly line along with 75% of technology in this deal; otherwise it's a no win for India.

    The Dassault Rafale programme cost the French close to $39 billion. India is set to pay around $20 billion for 126.

    We are giving them back their return on investment.

    The best choice would be go for the Gripen. Cost effective & collaborative govt.

  2. Is India the only sucker for the Rafale ? Why are France and Dassault not able to sell to anybody else ?

    IAF have stuck their necks out on this deal. Their hands had better be clean else disaster for IAF and to a certain extent even GoI. Their import fascination has already made them very very unpopular among the knowledgeable people.

  3. Rafale and Typhoon are the only 2 fighter planes which successfully passed the strenuous trials performed by the IAF. All other aircrafts had significant failures during these tests.

  4. IAF, Indian MOD should buy mix of F-15 Silent Eagle & F-18 Super Hornet E/F. American fighters are cost effective, battle proven, got best avionics & AESA radar than any European fighters.

  5. Suren Singh Sahni

    Domestic production is impossible. We simply do not have the infrastructure creativity knowledge experience and equipment. Teja project since 1980s yet to leave the nest. Best scientists and technology experts work in foreign markets due to corruption .

  6. All of you have been ta;king about cost effectiveness, why France could not sell to others, American fighters, gripen etc. But you fail to realise that the French Mirage2000 saved the Kargil war..

    Easy to sit on the computer & post something without realising the technologies & freindliness and realibility of equipments.

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