India to buy 26 Rafale Marine jets, deal may be signed next year, says Navy chief

India will buy 26 Rafale Marine warplanes and the deal is expected to be signed next year, said Navy chief Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi on Monday (December 2).

At the annual Navy Day press conference, Tripathi said that the Rafale Marine deal is in the advanced stage of negotiations.

“Rafale Marine is at an advanced stage of negotiations and is only one level short of taking it to the Cabinet Committee on Security. Since it is a government-to-government deal, it should not take much time,” said Tripathi.

Rafale Marine is the naval version of the Rafale warplanes that have already entered service with the Indian Air Force (IAF). India purchased 36 Rafales for the IAF in 2016 and the first plane was inducted in 2020.

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Tripathi further said that India is also in the process of buying three more Scorpene-class submarines for the Navy, which are diesel-powered attack submarines. These submarines are also made in France.

It has previously been reported that India is negotiating the Rafale Marine deal at a significant discount.

The Hindustan Times has reported that the French government is all for supporting India in the self-reliance ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative by offering to manufacture the Rafale warplanes and Safran aircraft engines in India on a 100 per cent transfer-of-technology basis.

The HT further reported that French manufacturer Dassault has reduced cost by nearly 500 million euros.