Manohar Parrikar had suggested procurement of 63 Dassault Rafale
Source : IDRW
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| Image Credit : OpIndia |
A new biography on former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that was penned down by Nitin Gokhale has said that the initial push for procurement of Dassault Rafale on urgency bases and had suggested off the shelf purchase rather than delaying and spend time in contract negotiation with Dassault for local manufacturing of the jet that was stuck due Quality assurance of the jet and the price, that was to be made by the HAL in India.
“Manohar Parrikar – Brilliant Mind, Simple Life (Bloomsbury)” has a Rafale chapter with details giving out interesting details, on how the process of Rafale procurement was carried out and one of the interesting revelation was that former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar recommended off the shelf purchase of 63 Dassault Rafale from France directly but with no clarity on how and why the number was later reduced to just 36.
It is often said that when India placed orders for 36 Rafale, its production line was already at its minimum sustaining rate and since it had won back to back export orders from Qatar Air Force and Egyptian Air Force just before the contract was signed with India, Dassault aviation at that time was still upscaling its production rate and allegedly had requested India to have a longer delivery schedule but for India, that could have killed the whole idea of buying it directly from France for faster induction due to which order size was reduced to just 36.
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36 rafale was not enough. Just like mig 29. We need min 4 sqd of rafale......min 72 nd max 144 rafale will boost Indian air power. S400 deal and future s500 deal makes India much stronger dan its neighbour... Need amca in fast track min 200 amc needed along with F4 rafale nd mk2 tejas. Mki Su30 gives more teeth to our air power.. Along with air power we should concentrate on naval power by adding more submarines nd one more carrier. Need 200 plus fighter for navy...
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely....need at least 72 Rafale fighters with 2nd tranche of 36 jets of F4 standard...and if possible then acquire 114 Rafale jets under MMRCA 2.0......IAF has already commited for 120 AMCA as of now, and the number may increase later. Indian Navy on the other hand shifted its focus from Aircraft Carrier to more submarines, and they are also eyeing Rafale naval version and American F/A-18 Hornet for carrier aviation role, alongside the future indigenous carrier borne fighter TEDBF.
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