
Jaitley said the price quoted for the French fighter by Congress was under negotiation by UPA and never finalised and was for the basic aircraft.
The claim that NDA’s price was three times as much incorrectly compared the basic aircraft with a fully weaponised fighter, which was misleading, he said.
The minister asserted that NDA had got a better deal on pricing both for the basic fighter and for the aircraft with its weapons suite.
He said if the 3% escalation cost — in UPA terms — and variation in foreign exchange values were taken into account, the basic fighter would have cost 9% more, as per UPA terms. He said even with the loaded version, the NDA deal was close to 20% cheaper than the price that was being negotiated by UPA.
from Times of India https://ift.tt/2MWprDj