{"id":61625,"date":"2015-08-09T14:24:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-09T14:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2015\/08\/09\/analysts-india-s-fighter-buy-cancellation-hurts-industry-air-force\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:25:08","slug":"analysts-india-s-fighter-buy-cancellation-hurts-industry-air-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2015\/08\/09\/analysts-india-s-fighter-buy-cancellation-hurts-industry-air-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysts: India&#8217;s Fighter Buy Cancellation Hurts Industry, Air Force"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NEW DELHI \u2014 India&#8217;s cancel<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">l<\/span>ation of a $12 billion program to purchase\u00a0126 combat aircraft eliminates an opportunity for domestic industry to build sophisticated aircraft based on transfer of Western technology and once again leaves the Air Force without a plan to rebuild its dwindling fleet, analysts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cancel<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">l<\/span>ation of the program, in which Rafale had\u00a0been down-selected\u00a0in an\u00a0open competition in response\u00a0to a 2007 request for\u00a0proposal<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> in\u00a02007<\/span>, was a foregone conclusion after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced during his April 11 visit to Paris his\u00a0intention to buy 36 Rafales\u00a0in fly-away condition on a government-to-government basis, analysts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An Indian Air Force official, however, said\u00a0an alternative plan to beef up declining fighter aircraft strength should have been announced alongside the cancel<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">l<\/span>ation of the 2007 RFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vivek Rae, former MoD director-general for\u00a0procurement, said,\u00a0&#8220;The reason the [medium multirole combat aircraft]\u00a0deal has been canceled is because they are going ahead with the government-to-government route.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sitanshu Kar, MoD principal spokesman, refused to comment on the MMRCA tender<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> and gave no reason for its cancellation<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A brief statement by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in India&#8217;s Parliament on July 30\u00a0put an end to the program but gave no reasons for the cancellation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The RFP issued earlier for procurement of 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) has been withdrawn. In this multi-vendor procurement case, the Rafale aircraft met all the performance characteristics stipulated in the Request for Proposal (RFP) during the evaluation conducted by Indian Air Force,&#8221; the MoD release said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The \u00a0[government-to-government]\u00a0program to buy 36 Rafales\u00a0was a separate program to the 2007 RFP under which negotiations were being held with Dassault Aviation and the two programs could not have existed side by side,&#8221; said another Indian Air Force official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Parrikar fueled speculation about the final size of the Rafale order May 31 when he said the French fighters were &#8220;way too expensive&#8221; and there was no longer a plan to buy a total of 126 Rafales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The French Defense Ministry and Dassault Aviation were unavailable for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Probably this was right\u00a0from the beginning when 36 Rafale aircraft were ordered that the 126 MMRCA deal would be canceled,\u00a0otherwise it cannot happen that way,&#8221; said Fali Major, retired Indian Air Force air chief marshal and former service chief. &#8220;I do not know the reason why the\u00a0126-MMRCA deal was canceled.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The end of the 2007 RFP also ended a\u00a0proposal to build Rafale fighters at India&#8217;s Hindustan Aeronautics\u00a0Ltd.\u00a0(HAL) on a technology-transfer basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gopal Sutar, HAL spokesman, said the company would <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">, &#8220;we do<\/span> not comment on the government decision<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> why the MMRCA deal has been canceled<\/span>.<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">&#8220;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The decision to cancel the RFP after nearly eight years also puts an end to the proposal to build medium fighter aircraft from the Western world on a transfer of technology basis, which is an\u00a0opportunity missed,&#8221; defense\u00a0analyst Nitin Mehta said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An\u00a0MoD source said that after the Rafale was\u00a0down-selected\u00a0in 2012, negotiations ground to a halt\u00a0as the Indian side demanded French guarantees\u00a0on delivery of the\u00a0aircraft to be produced in India by HAL. India and France also could not resolve issues relating to production and cost of the\u00a0India-made Rafales, which were to have been license-produced by HAL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An executive from\u00a0an overseas defense company, who spoke on condition of anonymity,\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">without being named \u00a0<\/span>said that\u00a0canceling the\u00a0RFP runs\u00a0contrary to the policy of the Modi government to boost Make in India projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, negotiations continue\u00a0for purchase of the 36 Rafales.\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">have got \u00a0into full \u00a0throttle. <\/span>The MoD source said India is not insisting on fulfillment of 50 percent offset obligations by France\u00a0in the deal, which France had opposed. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the initial plan to buy 126 aircraft now reduced to <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">purchase of\u00a0only<\/span> 36 Rafales, the first Air Force official said it is unclear how <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">IAF \u00a0official \u00a0(first \u00a0one) \u00a0<\/span>the MoD will further meet the service&#8217;s fighter needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;T<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">Currently t<\/span>he Air Force has a significant shortage of combat aircraft,&#8221; Srinivasapuram Krishnaswamy, retired Air Force air chief marshal and\u00a0former\u00a0service chief, told Defense News. &#8220;Numbers are well below those authorized and continue\u00a0to dwindle as older machines retire. Considering the low rate of induction, the <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">IAF<\/span>\u00a0[Air Force]\u00a0may take more than a decade or two to reach its authorized strength,&#8221; \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a\u00a0report by a parliamentary panel, released in December, India&#8217;s\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">2014, <\/span>fighter aircraft strength is down to 25 squadrons\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">(one squadron is<\/span>\u00a0of 18 aircraft each<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">)<\/span> against the\u00a0required strength of 45\u00a0squadrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of those 25 squadrons, 14\u00a0are equipped with Russian-made MiG-21\u00a0and MiG-27 fighters,\u00a0which will begin retiring this year\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">beginning 2015 \u00a0<\/span>through \u00a02024. To fill the gap, the Air Force decided to acquire\u00a0medium multirole combat aircraft and floated the 2007 RFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;As the proposal to acquire 126 Rafales is canceled and replaced with only an intention to buy 36 Rafales, the shortfall in fighters could be met by several options<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">,<\/span> \u2014\u00a0including producing a single-engine fighter to replace the aging MiG-21, or developing a homemade medium fighter with help from overseas or accelerat<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">e<\/span>ing the proposed Indo-Russian Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> aircraft<\/span>,&#8221; Mehta said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rafale was selected over the Eurofighter Typhoon only on the basis of cost\u00a0after <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">\u00a0only \u00a0two bidders \u00a0were \u00a0left \u00a0in the field \u00a0as \u00a0<\/span>the F-16, F-18, Gripen and MiG-35\u00a0were eliminated from competition following flight trials in\u00a0August 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Email:\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:vraghuvanshi@defensenews.com\">vraghuvanshi@defensenews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India&#8217;s cancellation of a program to buy 126 combat aircraft eliminates an opportunity for industry to build sophisticated aircraft<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":116613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3390],"class_list":["post-61625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"IRO2PB5W4ZDCHA3UQFFR2PJAJY","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2015\/08\/09\/analysts-india-s-fighter-buy-cancellation-hurts-industry-air-force\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Analysts: India&#039;s Fighter Buy Cancellation Hurts Industry, Air Force - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"India&#039;s cancellation of a program to buy 126 combat aircraft eliminates an opportunity for industry to build sophisticated aircraft\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Analysts: India&#039;s Fighter Buy Cancellation Hurts Industry, Air Force\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"India&#039;s cancellation of a program to buy 126 combat aircraft eliminates an opportunity for industry to build sophisticated aircraft\" \/>\n<meta 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