India Today – October 08, 2018

24 INDIA TODAY OCTOBER 8, 2018

RAFALE DEAL

JET, SET

GO

How the Anil
Ambani-
Dassault
partnership
came to be, and
the reasons
behind the
current
turbulence

AT WHAT PRICE WERE THE RAFALE
JETS BOUGHT?
By now, the utility and lethality of the
Dassault Rafale are beyond question.
The Indian Air Force itself gave the Ra-
fale’s capabilities a thumbs up in an un-
usual public endorsement.
On September 13, Air Chief Marshal
B.S. Dhanoa defended the purchase of
only two squadrons of the aircraft as op-
posed to the seven squadrons the IAF
had projected in 2005, citing past prece-
dent of emergency purchases of Mirage
2000s and MiG-23s. A week later, Air
Force Deputy Chief Raghunath Nambiar
f lew a Rafale at a French air base to show
that the IAF was on board and in the
front seat when it came to the purchase.
The Cost Negotiation Committee (CNC),
which actually worked out the price of
the deal, was headed by Deputy Chief Air
Marshal R.K. Singh Bhadauria in 2016
and not the Joint Secretary (Air), an
IAS officer, as is the norm. Crucial CNC
meetings were held in Vay u Bhavan, not
in the defence ministry headquarters in
South Block a kilometre away.
The crux of the issue, however, re-
mains the price that the Rafales were
bought for. This essentially is the thrust
of the “my deal versus your deal” battle
between the Congress and NDA even
though it is clearly the latter who actual-
ly bit the bullet and bought the aircraft.
The Cong ress says they negotiated a cost
of Rs 526 crore per aircraft on December
12, 2012, whereas the price of the off-
the-shelf Rafale the NDA was buying

FEB. 12, 2015 Reliance

Infra structure tells BSE it’s

set up three wholly owned

subsidiaries: Reliance Defence

Systems Pvt Ltd, Reliance

Defence Technologies

Pvt Ltd, and Reliance

Defence and Aerospace

MAR. 4,

2015 Anil

Ambani

acquires

Pipavav

Shipyard for

`2,082 crore

MAR. 28,

2015

Anil

Ambani-

led Reliance

Defence is

incorporated

APR. 11, 2015 Prime Minister

Narendra Modi signs MoU with

President Francois Hollande

for the sale of 36 Rafale aircraft

in flyaway condition on terms that

would be better than conveyed

by Dassault Aviation as part of a

separate process under way

SHOW OF RESPECT Anil

Ambani with the PM at the Vibrant

Gujarat summit in Jan. 2017

I THINK HE (RAHUL GANDHI) IS IN

SOME KIND OF REVENGE MODE. I

WON’T BE SURPRISED IF THE WHOLE

THING IS BEING ORCHESTRATED. ON

30 AUGUST, WHY DID HE (RAHUL)

TWEET ‘JUST WAIT FOR A WHILE,

SOME BOMBS ARE GOING TO BE

BURST IN PARIS’”

SEPT. 23, 2018, FINANCE MINISTER ARUN

JAITLEY TO NEWS AGENCY ANI

AMIT DAVE/REUTERS