No More Delay in Delivery of 36 Rafale Jets says France

France, May 25: French Ambassador Emmanuel Lenain has said firmly said there will be no more postponement in the delivery of 36 Rafale jets to India as 'the timeline finalised for the supply of the fighter jets will be strictly respected'.

 

 

Earlier, the acquisition of Rafale jets was to be delivered by May end but was delayed due to the lockdown in both the countries. France is also suffering immensely due to the coronavirus pandemic where over 1,45,000 people were infected by the virus there, while the death toll stood at 28,330. However, Lenain asserted that the original timeline for the delivery of the jets will be adhered to.

 

“The contractual delivery schedule of the Rafale jets has been perfectly respected till now, and, in fact, a new aircraft was handed over to the Indian Air Force in end-April in France, in keeping with the contract,” Lenain noted.

 

“We are helping the Indian Air Force in arranging for the ferry flight of their first four Rafales from France to India as soon as possible. So there’s no reason today to speculate that the schedule will not be maintained,” the envoy said.

 

It was earlier reported that the first four aircraft including three twin-seater trainer aircraft and one single-seater fighter aircraft would start arriving by the end of July at the Ambala airbase. The trainers will have the tail numbers of the RB series in honour of the Air Force Chief RKS Bhadauria who played a pivotal role in signing India’s largest-ever defence deal for 36 Rafale combat aircraft.

 

In September 2016, India had signed a deal with France for the acquisition of 36 Rafale multi-role fighter jets in a fly-away condition along with 13 India Specific Enhancements (ISE) under a €7.87 billion (Rs. 60,000 crores) Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA).

 

It was reported earlier that the arrival of jets was postponed given the coronavirus crisis. “In mid-March, there were 8-9 weeks of training left before the first major group could move to India for starting operations here. Some logistic support equipment and test equipment were also to be flown to Ambala beginning April, which is postponed as of now due to the lockdown and restrictions on flights imposed by India,” a defence source had said in an interview.

 

Last year in October, on a visit to France for the second India-France ministerial-level annual defence dialogue, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took formal delivery of the first Rafale jet built for the IAF at the Dassault Aviation’s facility in Merignac. At that time, the Defence Ministry had stated that during the dialogue the “French side has agreed to consider the Indian request for 8-10 Meteor missiles to be given to India by 2020 with the first four aircraft”.