Demanding that the Government must publish the full details of the `59,000-crore Rafale fighter jet contract, the Congress on Saturday said the absence of any provision of technology transfer would cost India “very heavily”.
Senior Congress leader and former Defence Minister AK Antony also questioned as how India would bridge the gap with respect to China and Pakistan by acquiring just 36 aircraft when the original plan was for 126.
Addressing a joint Press conference along with party spokesman Manish Tewari at the AICC headquarters, Antony lamented that the idea of ‘Make in India’ which was there in the original plan has also “gone” in the present deal.
“During UPA, we had planned to buy 126 aircraft to strengthen IAF which was its urgent operational requirement considering security situation in the country,” Antony said wondering why only 36 aircraft were being bought.
“Is it enough to meet operational requirement of the IAF which has a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons and... At present there are just 32 squadronsIJ”, Antony asked. A squadron has generally 18 aircraft.
Maintaining that more aircraft were necessary for the operational requirement of the IAF, he said, otherwise, by 2022 the squadron available with IAF would be reduced to 25.
“I don’t want to comment on the present price before I know the exact details. Government must publish the details of the final contract,” Antony said.
“Today we read inspired pieces in some media, which claim the present Government has saved money by hard negotiations. That’s not true!”, he said adding, “You can’t compare the Rafale deal price during UPA Government’s time and now.”
The former Defence Minister said that during UPA rule, he received complaints from many quarters, even from former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, on the price issue because of the fact that the concept of life cycle cost has been introduced.
“When there is a complaint that the price is high, we decided to enquire about that. We decided to wait for the final decision of the Finance Ministry,” he said, seeking to know the decision of the Finance Ministry on the issue.
Tewari said government needs to tell in detail what is the “fine print” of the contract which has been negotiated and what was the “fine print” of the contract which UPA Government was negotiating when it left office in 2014.