Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 6

Eleven years after India went scouting for a foreign fighter jet, it on Friday invited global military aviation companies to make fighter jets in India.The Tribune was the first to report this in its edition dated February 22 this year as to how India would float a fresh tender and scout for foreign firms to come and make in India.The Ministry of Defence invited global plane makers to send in their initial proposals. Termed as the request for information (RFI), this is the first step in the tendering process and is expected shortly.It was in 2007 that tenders for the 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) were floated. An intensive flight trial process later, two planes–Eurofighter Typhoon and French Dassault’s Rafale–were selected in 2012.Price negotiations followed, but the deal couldn’t be completed and was scrapped. In April 2015, the Government announced a move to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets in an off-the-shelf condition from French major Dassault.India’s move comes as the Indian Air Force is now down to 31 squadrons against the need of 42, as mandated by the Cabinet Committee on Security. Each squadron has 16-18 planes. The MoD and the IAF have kept their options open and are not restricted to, say a “single engine” fighter jet. The option will be to get a “fighter jet” and it will not specify the number of engines as that restricts the options.These will be under ‘make in India’ and to get global manufactures to have a production line in India, the project needs adequate numbers with possibility of future expansions. To speed up matters, the MoD will be looking at new additions made by global players since the MMRCA trials were carried out in 2011. The planes tested then were Lockheed Martin’s F-16IN, US Boeing’s F/A-18IN, Eurofighter Typhoon, French Dassault’s Rafale, Swedish Saab’s Gripen and Russian MiG-35.In the past two years, the IAF and the MoD were in talks for a “single engine” fighter jet with two global manufactures. However, this has been superseded by the thought process to just focus on getting additional jets without getting into “single engine” or “twin engine” variants.The existing production of 123 Tejas fighter jets being made by public sector giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is just taking off and it will take more than a decade for the entire lot to be manufactured. The IAF has the mandate to have 272 Sukhoi 30 MKI in its fleet. The MiG 21s are on their last legs and have to be phased out.