The Centre's document, made public after the Supreme Court's October 31 order, said, "During t his long period of inconclusive 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft process, our adversaries inducted modern aircraft and upgraded their old versions. They acquired better capability air-to-air missiles and inducted their indigenous fighters in large numbers. Further, they modernised and inducted aircraft with advanced weapon and radar capabilities. Our adversaries inducted more than 400 fighters (equivalent to 20 squadrons) during 2010-15."
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Citing induction of fourth and fifth generation stealth fighter jets by adversaries, the Centre said, "The combined effect of our own reducing combat potential and our adversaries enhancing combat capabilities made the situation asymmetrical and extremely critical. An urgent need was felt to arrest the decline in the number of IAF squadrons." Referring to April 10, 2015, Indo-French joint statement, it said Dassault agreed to provide 36 Rafale jets (two squadrons in flyaway condition, "on terms which would be better than conveyed by Dassault in the process, which was already underway (126 jets)".
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Negotiations between the Indian and French sides between May 2015 and April 2016 spanned 74 meetings, of which 48 were internal and 26 with the French side, the Centre said. On August 4, 2016, the negotiating team submitted its report. It was vetted by the finance and law ministries before being approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security on August 24, 2016. The intergovernmental agreement was signed on September 23, 2016, "for procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft along with aircraft package supply protocol, weapons package protocol, technical arrangement and offset contracts", it added.
About Dassault's Indian offset partner, which has been a subject of major controversy involving ADAG's Reliance Defence, the Centre said, "There is no mention of any private Indian business house (s) in the inter-governmental agreement or offset contract. As per the offset contract, the vendor/original equipment manufacturer is required to confirm details of Indian offset partners/products either at the time of seeking offset credits or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation.
"The annual offset implementation schedule, as per the offset contract, will commence from October 2019. The vendor/OEM (Dassault) is yet to submit a formal proposal indicating details of Indian offset partners and products for offset discharge. "Post contract, the vendor submits sixmonthly offset reports to Defence Offset Management Wing. These offset discharge reports are then independently audited by the Controller General of Defence Accounts... There are no offset obligations in the first three years." Ruling out any payment to any private Indian business partner of Dassault, the Centre said, "Mandatory sixmonthly reports have been submitted by both Dassault and MBDA (which is arming the aircraft with missiles and missile systems) and indicate nil offset discharge.
"In addition to offset obligation discharged by the two vendors - Dassault Aviation and MBDA - offset obligations will also be discharged by 21 Tier-I sub-vendors and 12 Tier-I sub-vendors which have been permitted by Dassault and MBDA respectively. Share of Dassault in total offset is 19.9% and MBDA's is 6.27%."
from Times of India https://ift.tt/2PmopCq
