The story
begins from 28th AUGUST
2007 , when our defence minister
accepted proposal for
126 MMRCA(medium multi
role combat aircraft
fighter jets ). We
needed to buy fighter jets ,so
various companies submitted their bids and in May 2011, two aircrafts were shortlisted ,1) EUROFIGHTER TYCOON 2)DASSAULT
RAFALE . Negotiations
started in January 2012 ,with DASSAULT aviation for RAFALE
aircrafts .The deal
was to purchase 126 fighter jets
of which 18 were
supposed to be off the shelf that
is they were supposed to be manufactured in France and they
would have been ready to fly
as soon as we
got them and the
remaining fighter jets were supposed
to be manufactured in INDIA by HAL(Hindustan aeronautics limited).
DASSAULT
aviation , the French company was to
transfer its technology to HAL , Using this technology , HAL would have manufactured the
remaining 108 fighter jets.
In march 2014 ,
DASSAULT aviation and
HAL signed a work share agreement
which stated that 70%
of the work to manufacture the 108 aircraft in INDIA
was to be undertaken
by HAL and rest 30% by DASSAULT
aviation. The negotiation took
long time as two companies
could not agree on several
points . During
this time government
changed and the negotiation was still not finalized .
Finally on 25thy march
2015 , DASSAULT CEO ERIC TRAPPIER said
that the deal will be signed soon.
NEW RAFALE
DEAL (2015)
On 8th april 2015 , our foreign secretary said that
negotiations among Indian
governments, HAL and DASSAULT are sill not
over and after
two days suddenly on
10th april 2015 , a joint statement
was issued by the Indian
and French government
that a new deal
is upcoming. As per the
new deal, 36
RAFALE aircraft were to be
purchased by INDIAN government all of which
in fly away off the
shelf condition . Opposition
questioned that what
happened to the older deal?,
Which included 108 aircraft
to be manufactured in INDIA by HAL. On
13th april 2015 , then
defence minister MANOHAR PARRIKAR said that ,PM MODI
took the decision and I backed
it up .
In
new deal, there is an offset clause for
50% of the value ,the deal is
worth 60,000 CRORES which
means india will buy
fighter jets from DASSAULT
for 60,000 crore out of
which DASSAULT has to
invest 50% of it that is 30,000 crore
in INDIA. Technically it
should be upto dassault
to decide in which INDIAN
companies it wants to invest. On 3rd October
2016, Anil Ambani’s Reliance group
started a joint venture with
dassault aviation whose
name is DASSAULT RELIANCE
AEROSPACE Ltd. On 21st june
2017, a report of the HINDU BUSINESS LINE stated that
of the 30000 crore offset money,
dassault is planning to invest 21,000 crore in joint venture with RELIANCE
group. And this is the reason why the
opposition congress party repeatedly questioned this deal
and accused the government
of favouritism towards reliance industry. On 21st September
2018, the controversy
developed when the ex. French
president FRANCOIS HOLLANDE said that
government chose
ANIL AMBANI as the
offset partner and French
government had no choice of it.
But dassault responded to it saying that it choose reliance on
its own .
On 13th September
2018 then defence minister
NIRMALA SITARAMAN said that the government had not
given any suggestion to dassault and they chose reliance on their
own.21st October 2018, dassault CEO
said that only 10% of the offset obligations is supposed
to go to reliance and rest to 100
different companies. But this totally
contradicts the report given by hindu business line. And due to
this contradiction the controversy caught everyone's eye.
PRICING OF
RAFALE JETS
The
next controversy about
the RAFALE deal is about its
cost. Congress spokesperson say
that total cost
of the old deal
was 54,000 crore,
the average cost for 126 jets
was 526 crore . Moving on to
the new deal,
the cost for the new deal will be 59,000 crore for 36 RAFALE
JETS. That is 1638 crore per
plane ! This creates all the
controversies. Congress asks how the
price per plane jumps up to
1638 crore from 526 crore? What’s
the reason for it?
On 15th November 2018 , the junior minister of defence
said in the parliament that as
per the new deal the cost per jet is 670 crore
but it increases to 1638
crore due to the other weapons
and maintenance parts. Government tell us the
basic cost per plane and cost of
deal but did not disclose the specific
details. The government cite national
security as the reason for not revealing the details.
SUPREME COURT
JUDGEMENT
Now we
come to SC
judgement. On 5th
September 2018, SC asked
central government to share
the details of rafale deal . On
12th November , the
central government gave the details to the SC
as directed. Then on 14th
December , SC gave its verdict. In the
judgement it stated that , “ we find no
reason for any
intervention by this
court on this
sensitive issue”. The case
would have ended
here , if there were not
factual errors in the SC
judgement. N.RAM ,
THE HINDU , ex
editor in chief has
investigated the reports and exposed it ,because of
which , the RAFALE deal is
reopened in SC. And this controversy keeps moving, but finally
in October 2019 INDIA
receives 1st rafale
jet. And then in November 2019
SC dismisses all the
review petition on rafale deals
saying that no corruption have been found.
- Labhesh Gupta
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