The Defence Ministry has received a proposal from the Indian Air Force for acquiring 114 ‘Made in India’ Rafale fighter jets, as per a report by ANI. The proposal to build the planes by Dassault Aviation involving Indian aerospace firms in India is currently being discussed at the ministry.
The project to make 114 Rafale jets in India will be worth over ₹2 lakh crore, and it will have indigenous content of more than 60%. The report stated that the proposal is expected to be taken up for discussion by the Defence Procurement Board headed by the Defence Secretary in the next few weeks.
A defence official said that “The Statement of Case (SoC) or the proposal for the 114 Rafale jets prepared by the Indian Air Force was received by the Defence Ministry a few days ago and is under consideration of the different wings under it, including Defence Finance.” The discussions, the proposal will be forwarded to Defence Procurement Board, and then to the Defence Acquisition Council.
If finalised, this will be the biggest ever defence deal, and it will take the number of Rafale fighter jet in the fleet of Indian defence forces to 176. Because, the Indian Air Force has already inducted 36 jets, and Indian Navy has placed orders for 26 of the naval version of the jet under government-to-government deals.
As per the report, the IAF decided to acquire more Rafal jets after it performed very well against Pakistan in Operation Sindoor, where it managed to comprehensively beat the Chinese PL-15 air-to-air missiles using its Spectra Electronic warfare suite.
The made in India Rafale is expected to have longer-range air-to-ground missiles than the existing Scalp missiles.
The French side is also planning to set up a Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul facility in Hyderabad for the M-88 engines, which are used by Rafale jets.
IAF has urgent need to acquire fighter jets, as it has retired MiG 21 jets and other jets like Jaguar, Mirage 2000 and MiG 29 jets are nearing retirement age, and delivery of the LCA Tejas jets have been delayed.
Indian Air Force has already ordered 180 LCA Mark1A jets, and work is on to develop Tejas LCA Mark 2 and fight generation AMCA jets.
