In a big blow to Opposition, Indian Air Force Deputy Chief Marshal R Nambiar has come in support of Government. In an exclusive interview given to Republic World, the IAF deputy chief made it very clear that there is no involvement of the union Government in choice of Reliance as their offset partner. It was completely the decision of Dassault with which company they want to tie up with and the allegations by opposition regarding snatching contract from HAL and giving it to Reliance holds no importance.
“The existing offset guideline specifies that the offset contract need not specify the Indian offset partner at the point of signing the contract because this requires a lot of negotiation. As far as Government of India was concerned, we negotiated with Dassault for the offset contract for the aircraft and we negotiated with MBDA for the weapons offset contract. We were not involved with Reliance when this deal was negotiated. There was no Indian offset partner specified. It was left to Dassault to decide who they went with. This was done on purely commercial terms,” said the IAF Deputy Chief.
IAF chief further said that the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets was much better and cheaper than what was negotiated earlier. He also explained vanilla price is 9 per cent cheaper, with weapons package the deal is 20 percent cheaper, and overall taking payment plan into consideration, it is 40 percent cheaper. He also threw the light that to get the deal locked several rounds of negotiation has taken place
“We had many rounds of negotiations. It went on for 14 months. The Indian side was very insistent that we get a better price. The current offer is 9 percent better than the previous offer. The overall package is better than the previous one by almost 20 percent. And, we got a better payment plan of as much as of 40 percent cheaper than the previous price,” said IAF Deputy Chief Air Marshal R Nambiar
Earlier IAF Chief Birender Singh Dhanoa had also hit back at Congress putting details regarding the deal. The chief made it very clear that deal was locked keeping in view the need to enhance IAF’s capability and security of country.
Even Air Force vice Chief Air Marshal SB Deo had also said that the IAF is waiting for the aircraft while adding that the allegations being made about the deal by people who do not know the facts. “We’re waiting for the aircraft. Rafale is a beautiful and capable aircraft. I shouldn’t comment but I can tell you all this discussion and all these things going around Rafale because we know a lot about how everything went, we find that, people don’t have the information,” the Vice Chief of Air Force had said.
Congress for its own selfish motive is trying to create controversy over the much needed deal for security of country. Although the party is boasting that we will do justice with the air force. Modi Government is cheating the nation. When the reality is Congress is cheating the nation by spreading the misinformation and putting the nation’s security at stake
Source : Republic World
No comments:
Post a Comment