By Rohan Joshi
…and what India needs to do to avoid flubs of the sort in the future.
India’s decision to procure 36 Dassault Rafale combat jets is an attempt to stop short-term hemorrhaging, but is not a substitute for the urgent need to address both the erosion of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) force strength or gaps in higher defense management that continue to plague the Indian armed forces.
On India’s decision to opt for a government-to-government deal during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France, Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar indicated that India’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) project, which had taken 14 years from the projection of requirements to vendor selection, was effectively dead. The $10 billion MMRCA project for 126 combat aircraft was conceived by the IAF in 2001 with an aim to augment its force strength, which is at an all-time low of 29 squadron as a result of defense procurement inefficiencies, obsolescence and crashes.
It then took the Ministry of Defense six years after IAF conceived a requirement to then issue Requests for Proposal (RFPs) for the MiG-35, JAS-39, Eurofighter Typhoon, F-16, F/A-18 and Rafale. The terms of the initial RFP stipulated the purchase of 18 aircraft in “fly away” condition, while requiring the remaining 108 aircraft to be manufactured in India under a Transfer of Technology Agreement with the vendor, which would also be required to meet its offset obligations in India, per MoD’s Defense Procurement Procedure (DPP).
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