According to sources at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the IAF has communicated to the ministry the minimum acceptable number of Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) that it immediately requires: 80. If this is true, the IAF reckons on adding five more squadrons of 16 aircraft each (which is actually a compromise, since an IAF combat squadron normally comprises 18 aircraft) to add more teeth to the world’s fourth largest air force.There is, however, a lot more than statistics involved in what has turned out to be one of India’s most tortuous defence acquisition bids ever.

To recall: the MoD sent out a Request For Information (RFI) for 126 MMRCA in 2001 and then dragged its feet over a decision to float a Request For Proposal (RFP), which only materialised much later in 2007/2008.The amount earmarked by the government for the MMRCA programme at the time was around $8 billion—the amount cleared by the Union Cabinet, based on the reckoning that each fighter would cost around $81 million. There were six bidders for the contract initially: Boeing’s F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin’s F 16 Fighting Falcon, Russia’s MiG-35, and Sweden’s Saab JAS-A39 Gripen. After an exhaustive selection process, Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale emerged as finalists in late 2012. Although everyone involved knew that the time lag and cost overruns involved made it inevitable that the budget would be overshot by a certain margin, few could have imagined that the final bill on the chosen Rafale would be so hefty. For if the IAF exercised the option of buying an additional 64 aircraft on the terms stipulated in the contract, the total of 190 planes would have jacked up the potential costs even higher.

As it happened, thorny issues cropped up within days of the IAF picking Rafale as its MMRCA. Cost negotiations hit hurdles with Dassault flagging liability issues for the 108 jets to be built by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in India and hiking their lifecycle costs. As negotiations dragged on, the IAF faced the prospect of getting a raw deal, or no deal at all (which was even worse as the contract could not be scrapped without incurring penalties and international loss of face that would have followed).Late last year, however, the face-saver came in the form of the Modi government’s decision to cut through the red tape and settle for buying 36 planes directly from France. This government-to-government route forced Dassault on to the backfoot, and the company has offered ‘discounted’ prices for the new order (Dassault sources point to an eventual $5 billion price tag for the 36 Rafale fighters excluding the maintenance contract).

Well, now that India is on the final stretch of buying its frontline fighter for the next 40 odd years, one would have thought the IAF has overcome most of its woes. But even with the modified order of 36 Rafales in the near term, it is unlikely that Dassault—whose production lines are already stretched by pre-existing contracts with Egypt, Qatar and the French Air Force—would be able to meet a 2016 deadline as the IAF wants. And in any case,even in large numbers, Rafale—a 4th Generation-plus fighter—is inferior to China’s 5thGeneration stealth fighter, the J-20, which was test-flown in early 2011. It is cold comfort that the J-20 will probably not be operational till 2020.

India’s indigenously built light combat aircraft (LCA) Tejas Mk I will get its long-awaited final operational clearance only next year, while its advance version, Tejas Mk II, will not be ready before 2022. As for the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) that India is jointly developing with Russia, it is still a vague entity years away on the horizon: hardly a reassuring situation with stealth fighters already taking to the skies elsewhere in China, South Korea, and Japan. (IPA Service)