Rafale jet makers not ready to share responsibility: Rao Inderjit

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Bengaluru, February 16

Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh today indicated that the deal with Dassault for supplying 126 Rafale multirole fighter aircraft to the IAF was not dead yet though it was facing problems.

He admitted the French manufacturers were not ready to share “responsibilities” for anything that might go wrong with the aircraft licence-produced in India by Bengaluru-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

This was not acceptable to India, the minister said while answering a question during a panel discussion organised as part of the “Aero-India” air show beginning in the city from Wednesday.

One hundred and eight (108) out of 126 aircraft are supposed to be produced in India by HAL under licence from Dassault. Rafale was adjudged winner of the MMRCA (medium multirole combat aircraft) tender floated by the IAF to revamp its depleted fleet from the current 38 squadrons to the authorised 45 squadrons.

Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin’s F-16IN Super Viper, Saab’s Gripen NG, and the Russian MiG-35 were the other fighters in the fray for the billion dollar deal. While the choice of Rafale was made way back in January 2012, little progress had been made toward taking the deal forward since then.