With negotiations for the proposed 36- Rafale fighter jet deal making little headway, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves le Drian will visit New Delhi next week to discuss contentious issues like offset and sharing of weapon technology with India. He will meet his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar and other political leaders on Tuesday to speed up the negotiations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced during his visit to Paris in April the decision to buy 36 Rafale jets from France in a Government to Government deal. The Indian Government later scrapped the earlier global tender for 126 medium multi role combat aircraft(MMRCA) in which Rafale, manufactured by Dassault of France emerged as the lowest bidder. The cancelled tender was pegged at more than Rs45,000 crore.
The cancelled contract had an offset clause wherein the vendor had to plough back 50 per cent of the contract with the objective of giving a boost to the Indian private and public sector industry. In the government to government parleys for the proposed 36-Rafale deal, India insisted on the offset clause besides sharing weapon technology but the French refused.
They reportedly said since India will be buying the jets off the shelf from France, the off set clause does not hold valid as the jets will not be manufactured in India. In scrapped contract, while 18 jets were to be bought from Dassault, the public sector aerospace giant Hindustan Aeronautics limted(HAl) was to build the remaining 96 planes in India.
Given this backdrop, sources indicated here on Thursday that following intervention at the highest level by the leadership of two countries, France has agreed to reconsider India’s off-set demand. The French defence minister is likely to take up this issue with Parrikar and the two sides are also likely to ink framework agreement thereby paving the way for signing the final contract, they said.
The two sides will also discuss the final price of each jet as France had earlier insisted that it will sell the jets at the same price finalised for the French and Oman air forces. This issue will also figure prominently during the two leaders, sources said. India has constituted a committee headed by Air Marshal SBP Sinha to hold negotiations with France.
A government to government contract entails French government taking all responsibilities including price, delivery schedule, after sales service and continuous supply of spare parts. India and France had earlier inked such a deal for 54 Mirage jets. Similarly, India has bought weapons worth over eight billion dollars from US through this method known as Foreign Military Sale(FMS) wherein the US government stands guarantee for the deals.