New Delhi: The deal to acquire 114 more Rafale fighter jets from France is likely to reach a conclusion by the end of the financial year, defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh has said.
“They had agreed to integrate Indian weapons even in the already contracted Rafale Marines that we had bought. In this case, of course, we are going one step ahead, in the sense that it’s a buy-and-make programme, with the bulk of the aircraft to be assembled in India, with significant levels of indigenisation and integration of Indian systems and weapons,” he told ANI.
On the integration of Indian weapons into the aircraft, Singh confirmed that bids submitted at the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage are currently undergoing formal assessment.
“They have given their bids, and these are being evaluated. After that, we’ll start taking it up. We should be able to reach some conclusion in that procurement cycle before the end of this year,” he said.
The defence ministry is also maintaining timelines for domestic aviation programmes, with the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk2 project moving towards initial flight trials next year under a public-private partnership framework.
“As of now, the LCA Mk2 is still on, with the first flight scheduled for the middle of next year. Let the prototypes come and let the Air Force evaluate them, and thereafter, we will see. I think initially that the requirement that they had projected was for 120 Mk2 aircraft. But let them deliver the prototypes, let them be evaluated, and we’ll see thereafter…,” the defence secretary said.
“For LCA, or for Tejas Mk2, LCA Mk2, we should follow a process of spiral development, upgrade it, and develop it within the existing public-sector ecosystem, HAL, which, incidentally, is increasingly using a lot of private-sector support to make not only the sub-assemblies but also some of the larger components, including fuselages. They have brought in a private-sector production line for some of these things as well. It will be public-sector-led, in all probability, but significant involvement of the Indian private industry and the MSME sector is, in any case, built into this programme as well,” Singh added.
Requests for Proposals (RFP) have also been invited from shortlisted vendors for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), he said.
“As of now, we haven’t gone, or we haven’t taken a decision, to go in for any global or outside fifth-generation fighter aircraft programme. Our programme is AMCA, and AMCA has reached a stage where Requests for Proposals (RFP) have been invited from the shortlisted vendors. They’ve sought more time because of the complexity and the fact that they are also getting into this space for the first time. We are going to give them some more time. But my understanding is that this is our programme, and we are putting all our eggs in this basket as of now,” the defence secretary said.