India Losing Patience With Dassault, May Cancel Deal & Order More Su-30 MKI's
India may order more Su-30MKI fighters as the squadron strength of the Indian Air Force (IAF) has dipped to 25 and negotiations with Dassault over Rafale fighter sale tether on the brink of collapse.
For the first time since negotiations with Dassault began three years ago, Indian MoD officials have been quoted by various local media that there is the real possibility of the talks collapsing. The issues over which the talks are deadlocked include cost escalation, transfer of technology and Dassault not wanting to assume responsibility for the aircraft assembled by HAL in India.
Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar had earlier this week this told journalists that his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian had offered to send an 'empowered' team to take forward the negotiations. In Indian bureaucratic talk, an empowered person is someone who has been given the authority to take decisions. What this could mean is that Dassault teams negotiating with India may be frequently consulting with their top management in Paris leading to delays.
Parrikar did not specify these difficulties at a press conference in New Delhi, but tellingly stated that additional licence-built Sukhoi Su-30MKI multirole fighters would be "adequate" for the Indian Air Force (IAF) in the event of the Rafale deal being scrapped.
"The Su-30MKI is an adequate aircraft for meeting the air force's needs," Parrikar said, adding that at INR3.58 billion (USD59.66 million) each, the unit cost of the Su-30MKIs being licence-built by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was less than half that of a Rafale. At present IAF has about 200 Sukhoi- 30 fleet, which represents almost a third of the country's fighter plane fleet.
A top government official told that under existing rules, there was no scope for the Eurofighter consortium, backed by four European countries, including UK, to re-enter the race to sell its Typhoon fighters to India. The Germany-led consortium had come up with a revised proposal — sweetened with a discount — to sell 126 Typhoons to India.
What may be egging the Indian MoD to order more Sukhoi fighters is revealed in a recently report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Defence. The PSC report has for the first time pointed out that the squadron strength of the IAF has come down to 25 from the sanctioned strength of 45. The IAF and MoD had all along maintained that the current strength is 32 squadrons with each squadron comprising of around 18 aircraft.
"Moreover, 14 of these squadrons are equipped with MiG-21s and MiG-27s, which will retire between 2015 and 2024.
Defence News - India Losing Patience With Dassault, May Cancel Deal & Order More Su-30 MKI's