India buys 36 French Rafale fighter jets to counter China, Pakistan squadrons

India has signed a €7.9 billion deal with France in New Delhi for 36 Dassault Rafale fighters to boost its declining combat squadrons.

French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian inked the agreement with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar in New Delhi – a deal for India to buy 36 Rafale worth about 7.9 billion euros (8.85 billion US dollars), one of India’s biggest defense deals in decades.

The agreement was signed by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Le Drian 16-months after Modi announced India’s plans to buy 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in flyaway condition during his trip to France.

He said that Dassault Aviation, manufacturer of the Rafale jets, is committed to the Make in India initiative.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to increase domestic production of defense equipment under a “Make in India” program, but that could take years. The sources have said India is looking at shortlisting one more aircraft, besides Tejas, to be manufactured domestically. Associate supplies for the 36 fighter jets will cost about 1800 million Euros while performance based logistics will cost about 353 million Euros.

The first planes will be delivered in 2019 and the 36 jets will form two new squadrons of the Indian airforce, which is trying to renew its dwindling fleet of Russian MiG-21s – dubbed “Flying Coffins” due to their poor safety record. “This is a first deal for fighter jets in 20 years which is uniqueness in itself”, said Parikkar. The Indian Air Force fighter squadrons comprise Soviet-era MiG 21s and MiG 27s which are in the process of being phased out; French Mirage 2000s, Russian Sukhoi 30s, and Anglo-French Jaguars.

Out of the 36 aircraft, 28 will be single-seater.

But it is still France’s biggest ever aviation defence deal in financial terms and was hailed as a vote of confidence by French President Francois Hollande, whose administration has lobbied heavily for the Rafale. There is a 50 percent offset clause under which the French industry will invest half the contract value back in the country which is expected to develop some expertise domestically in the aerospace sector.

The features that make the Rafale a strategic weapon in the hands of IAF, which is now down to 34 squadrons as against a sanctioned strength of 44, includes its beyond visual range Meteor air-to-air missile with a range of 150 km.

One of the key highlights of the new aircraft, apart from its weapon range, is the easy maintenance and operational characteristics. “Our air force has old aircraft, 1970s and 1980s generation aircraft and for the first time in about 25-30 years we will have a quantum jump in technology”, said defence analyst Gulshan Luthra. The delivery of Rafale jets will be done by 2019.