Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to India for the Artificial Intelligence Summit from Feb 18 to 20, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by defence minister Rajnath Singh, is scheduled to meet in the second week of this month to consider big-ticket defence procurement proposals, a defence source told TOI. Most important of them all is the likely proposal to grant Acceptance of Necessary (AoN) next week to buy 114 Rafale fighter jets from France at a cost of Rs 3.25 lakh crore.The proposed project will entail procurement of 18 aircraft in fly away condition and the rest made in India with up to 60% indigenous content. About 80% of the 114 Rafales proposed to be acquired under the deal are planned to be manufactured in India. Sources said the IAF is going to get 88 single-seater and 26 twin-seater aircraft under the project, of which the majority would be built in India with the collaboration of Dassault and Indian private sector companies.The acquisition, which was already cleared by Defence Procurement Board last month, will head to the apex body for the next round of clearances, following which the formal process of technical and commercial negotiations will start. Deal may be given the final shape during Macron’s visit to India.The IAF is currently operating around 30 fighter squadrons, well short of its sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons, at a time when threat perceptions are rising from Pakistan and China. Defence analysts point to increasing strategic collusion between Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as Pakistan and China, as key factors that have heightened regional security concerns. Once the deal gets completed, IAF will have a fleet of 150 Rafales, along with 26 of the Indian Navy, which will have an aircraft carrier-compatible version of the French planes.Operation Sindoor has shown the significance of the ‘4.5-gen king’ Rafale in offensive operations as it is armed with deadly missiles like Meteor, scalp and laser-guided bombs. The Rafale project is expected to help the IAF meet its requirement for a 4.5-gen-plus multirole fighter aircraft for a long time.The deal is urgently required as India is unlikely to get the new fifth-generation fighter plane Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) any time in near future as the process to shortlist companies for building such an advanced stealth fighter is still going on and HAL’s Tejas MkIA production programme is moving at a snail’s pace due to its dependence on Tejas engine on American company GE.
