Dassault Rafale emerges as the lowest bidder for multi-billion dollar IAF contract

French Rafale fighter, from the Dassault Aviation firm, has been announced as the lowest bidder for the India’s largest defence deal – the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force (IAF)’s. The deal involving nearly 126 aircrafts is pegged at around 18 billion dollars. Negotiations between Dassault Aviation and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), could take upto four-five months before the contract is inked. The French firm was declared as the lowest bidder, according to which it will get the contract under India’s defence procurement procedure, sources said. [caption id=“attachment_199155” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“WikiCommons”]  [/caption] “The French firm Dassault Rafale has emerged as the L-1 [lowest bidder] and cheaper than its european rival EADS [maker of Eurofighter] in the tender and will be offered to supply the aircraft to the IAF,” the source said. There is no official word yet from either the Ministry of Defence  or Dassault Aviation, sources said that Dassault has received a Letter of Intent from the Ministry. Meawhile Dassault has confirmed the news but but an official statement is yet to come. Sources say the representatives of Dassault here were informed about the development in the morning and further negotiations on price will be held with them in the next 10-15 days. The contract will be signed only in the next fiscal. According to the Request for Proposal (RFP), the winner of the contract will have to supply 18 of the 126 aircraft to the IAF in 36 months from its facilities and the remaining would be produced at HAL facilities in Bangalore. Six companies including American F-16 and F-18, Russian MiG 35, Swedish Saab Gripen alongwith Eurofighter and Dassault Rafale were in the race in the beginning. But in April last year, the Defence Ministry shortlisted Dassault and EADS, evicting the American, Russian and Swedish bids. The process was started with the issuing of a global tender in 2007 after which all the six contenders were subjected to extensive field evaluation trails by the Indian Air Force at several locations across the globe. With PTI inputs