Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: After being initially ruled out of the race for IAF's USD 10 billion deal for supplying 126 Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), French contender Rafale has reportedly bagged the prestigious contract.
In the process, French contender Rafale beat European consortium EADS’ Cassidian (Eurofighter Typhoon).
This has finally ended suspense over the speculated winner of the USD 10.4 billion deal to equip Indian Air Force with 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft.
The French fighter aircraft was earlier declared out of the race after it was found lacking on certain requirements of the IAF during the technical evaluation phase of the contract.
The deal was awarded to Rafale after evaluation of bids of the European consortium from Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain and EADS Cassidian by the Indian officials to figure out the fly-away cost, life cycle cost, technology transfer cost and the offset offers before the winner of the contract will be known.
The offset clause in the tender, included under the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) of 2006, requires the winner of the tender to reinvest 50 percent of the deal amount in the Indian defence industry in an effort to energise it.
India had in April down-selected the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Rafale and asked the manufacturers to extend their commercial bids that were on the point of expiring, till the middle of December.
The down-select had resulted in the rejection of four other contending aircraft -- the Lockheed Martin F-16, the Boeing F/A-18, Russian United Aircraft Corp's MiG-35 and Swedish SAAB's Gripen.
First Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 17:22