Creating a Bofors equivalent to beat Modi!

Arun Shourie, former editor of the Indian Express, and a posterboy of the BJP, author, and a member of the A B Vajpayee cabinet can be assumed to have become totally unhinged due to personal tragedies and frustrations in his life. His son Aditya suffers from cerebral palsy and wheelchair-bound from childhood; and his wife Anita from Parkinson's disease lately. His latest (?) book 'Anita Gets Bail' ("for a house we never built on a plot we did not own" in a case registered against her Haryana State Pollution Control Board during the UPA rule!) is heart-renting! The man who painted such an the ugly picture of India's justice-dispensing system is seen now arguing a case in the Supreme Court with an ugly mind and motive against the Narendra Modi still blames the Judiciary for granting him only a little more than a minute to speak against the “illegalities” and possibly corruption in the Supreme Court.

Many of the points are just fussy and pedantic fault-finding of a deal by its nature cannot be discussed much in detail and delayed for observing niceties, considering the IAF has been under-equipped for considerable length of time. However, since the allegations of the Prime Minister causing a "massive loss" to the exchequer, and also having "jeopardized national security" comes from the likes of Shourie, one has to examine the case truthfully.

First of all, the IAF’s fondness for the Dassault Rafale is acknowledgedly in order to simplify the Indian Air Force’s logistics chain by choosing an aircraft from the maker of the IAF’s Mirage-2000 (Dassault Systemes) which were made and are being upgraded by the same major companies (Thales, Safran etc.) that make the major components for the Rafale was a major consideration. The competition which gave some technical points to an Opposition leader with a notoriety for lack of intelligence and even poor memory only wanted to throw a spanner in the works hoping to delay the procurement of Rafale F3R, Advanced Multirole Combat Aircraft by India to re-enter the scene in case of a controversy of a massive corruption created can effect a change in government!

Secondly, there were indeed talks on the cost of some India specific upgrades between the IAF and Dassault during the UPA regime which had never progressed to conclusive cost negotiations between Dassault and HAL which was supposed to build Rafales in India!  The end result is that it is IMPOSSIBLE and ridiculous to compare the per-piece cost of the Rafales being acquired now and the Rafales being negotiated for earlier.

The final price for the whole package was brought down by stringent negotiation to 7.1 billion Euros from the 8.6 billion Euros that France asked for the 36 plane contract. The price works out to 262 million Euros for Qatar as compared to roughly 197 million Euros for the IAF. What Egypt bought at 217 million was the older F3 standard.  The 7.1 billion Euros for the Rafale includes the weapons, logistics cost (infrastructure & spares for 5 years-a benchmark is that a fighter consumes five per cent of its worth in consumables and spares each year), performance guarantee, additional 13 India Specific Enhancement (ISE) etc. which all come up to about half the 7.1 billion. It may be noted that the 7.1 billion Euros also includes climate controlled hangars for the 36 jets, setting up of support facilities, and pilot training. The version of the Rafale, F3R, Advanced Multirole Combat Aircraft in fly-away condition India has decided to procure has 14 improvements in its configuration were which are India-specific upgrades, over the previously down selected F3, ordered specifically on the request of the IAF according to Air Chief Marshal Raha. The Meteor air-to-air missile, considered to be the best in the world, is part of the new deal. Other special options include a low band jammer, towed decoy system, upgraded engine, additional modes in the radar and higher resolution in the Front Sector Optronics, the Israeli HMD sight and its integration, Israeli Litening Pod and its integration, radio altimeters, cold start for high altitudes, Doppler radar (all special to India), the nuclear capable Scalp cruise missile, spare parts and engines and the stringent availability requirements. There is a significant upgrade involved in making everything compatible with the Meteor and Scalp missiles being acquired. Targeting and other symbology specific to these weapon systems is being integrated into this helmet mounted sight.

These options, while being great war capability providers, add significantly to the cost of the whole deal. A Meteor missile for instance, is not only the best air-to-air missile, but also one of the most expensive at about a million Euros each.

The Opposition politicians are laying the worst dirty trick possible because of the Catch22 involved. The Government is being arm-twisted details of a defence purchase whose war capacity in a combat cannot be released! The Judiciary knows it, the media knows it, our intelligentsia know it, but it has become a political game which some of the smartest people have decided to play to bring down a Government which has had a corruption-free good governance record to its credit for the first time in India! The mandatory secrecy involved made the government make a few mistakes: it never presented a complete picture even to kill the Opposition political campaign. It was Senior journalist and editor Minhas Merchant who really presented the government’s case comprehensively in a newspaper article! I had personally appealed in several tweets to the PM/MoD that the details may be handed over to the President and the Supreme Commander of our Armed Forces to be passed on to CJI Dipak Misra who had no hostility towards this government) to scrutinize. It wasn’t done till the SC under CJI Gogoi sought details as a follow-up action on petitions before it alleging corruption. Doesn’t a stitch in time save seven?

A huge misinformation used in political campaign against the deal is that the HAL has been replaced by Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group in the new deal. ADAG hasn’t replaced HAL. Not a single component of the 36 Rafale fighters ordered by this government is being procured from ADAG. ADAG is presently making components of business jets for Dassault in a JV whose chairman is the chairman of Dassault Aviation! These components go into their global supply chain and those operations have nothing to do with the Rafales coming to India. If India decides to buy any more Rafale fighters, they may be made in India in future, but that will be under a separate agreement. There is another c component in the $2.9 billion contract – the offsets. The UPA had talked about an offset of 30% whereas under the negotiations concluded by Modi Government, 30 per cent offset commitment for military aerospace research and development programmes and 20 per cent for making components of Rafales!

Another allegation is that the HAL was dropped from the local manufacturing of Rafale fighters as if it was a foregone conclusion! Domestic assembly of foreign aircraft is not cost effective, the cost of the Su-30MKI made in India by HAL is known to be more than twice the cost of procuring it direct from Russia. HAL’s manufacturing capability is a joke as they have with difficulty agreed to manufacture 8 Tejas Mark-1 per annum due to pressure from the IAF. Tejas Mark-2 is only on the drawing board yet! No wonder, Dassault Aviation flatly refused to be associated with HAL in any manufacturing operations!

As many as 20 Indian companies, big and small, will get businesses worth over 3.5 billion dollars in the enhanced scheme of offset manufacturing, providing a great opportunity for indigenous manufacturers under Make India project in developing world class technology within the country. Samtel Avionics, Reliance Aerospace (of the ADAG), L&T, Mahindra Group, Kalyani Group, Godrej & Boyce, Tata group etc. are some of the companies listed as participants in the offset manufacture programme. The Opposition insinuates Anil Ambani is a major beneficiary because he is currently weaker of the two Ambani bothers. But he had been associated with the SP, not the BJP! It is a calumny to say that “Anil Ambani owned company has been benefited in the deal” as messrs Arun Shourie, Yaswant Sinha and Prashan Bhushan say! The Defence Research and Development Organisation, is also in the loop to benefit from French know-how in stealth, radar and thrust vectoring for missiles technologies in an ongoing and futuristic cooperation with Dassault.

Meanwhile a side-story has surfaced revealing part of the animosity towards Reliance Aerospace: there was one application which was not considered worth being included in the offset manufacture – that of “Offset India Solutions (OIS) Group” (owned by Sanjay Bhandari, alleged to be an associate of Robert Vadra) set up in 20018 as a defence consultancy and liaison services business for execution of offsets obligations for foreign armament companies! Bhandari’s main business is said to be importing somehow duty-free BMW, Mercedes Benzes and high end Maseratis and Lamborghinis and selling naturally, cheap to rich people! OIS-Advanced Technology Private Ltd, which ventured into manufacturing military radars! Sanjay Bhandari manages to swing a jet trainer deal for Swiss company Pilatus thereafter! This is no secret now, with TV News channels Times Now, Zee News and others publishing a mail trail our investigating agencies have unearthed. It was in the news lately that Sanjay Bhandari funded purchase of a property worth Rs.19 cores in London for his patron Vadra!