India, France sign Rs 63,000 crore mega deal to buy 26 Rafale Marine aircraft

NEW DELHI: India and France on Monday signed a mega Rs 63,000 crore deal to buy 26 Rafale Marine aircraft for the Indian Navy. During the agreement, the Indian side was represented by defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh, where Navy vice chief admiral K Swaminathan was present.

The deal, which comes amid the heightened tension between India and Pakistan, was cleared by the PM Modi-led cabinet committee on security earlier this month. The jets will primarily operate from the deck of the indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.

The government-to-government contract for the 22 single-seat Rafale-M jets and four twin-seat trainers includes some weapons, simulators, crew training and five-year performance-based logistics support.
The 26 Rafale-M fighters, designed for maritime strike, air defence and reconnaissance missions, will be delivered in 37 to 65 months, which will involve India paying an initial 15% instalment of the total cost of the deal.
“The new IGA mirrors the one inked in the IAF deal. All the 26 jets are to be delivered by 2031,” an official had told TOI.
The omni-role 4.5-generation Rafales, incidentally, are also capable of delivering nuclear weapons. In addition to the 70-km range Exocet AM39 anti-ship missiles, the Rafale-M jets will be armed with long-range precision strike weapons like the IAF variant.
They include the over 300-km range 'Scalp' air-to-ground cruise missiles and the top-notch Meteor air-to-air missiles, which have a strike range of 120 to 150-km to take on enemy jets.
The Rafale-M had emerged as the frontrunner over the American F/A-18 Super Hornet after extensive trials conducted by the Navy in 2022. The French fighter, in any case, had a head start on logistical, commonality of spares and maintenance after the IAF inducted its 36 Rafales.
The Navy currently has only 40 of the 45 MiG-29K jets, inducted from Russia at a cost of $2 billion from 2009 onwards, to operate from the decks of its two over 40,000-tonne aircraft carriers, the older Russian-origin INS Vikramaditya and the new indigenous INS Vikrant.
Moreover, the MiG-29Ks have also been dogged by poor serviceability and other problems over the years. With the indigenous twin-engine deck-based fighter (TEDBF) likely to take at least a decade to become operational, the Navy had pushed for the 26 Rafale-M jets as an interim measure.