India will ensure that indigenously developed missiles and weapons systems can be integrated into the 114 Rafale fighters it plans to buy, people familiar with the matter said.
They added that they would do this by insisting on a so-called Interface Control Document (ICD) in the government to contract with the government on a “buy and manufacture” deal.
The Ministry of Defense is expected to issue a request for proposals (RFP) to French aircraft manufacturer Dassault next month, and contract negotiations will begin after that. The Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) approved the deal on February 12.
The plan is to “tie in” the ICD into the final contract for, the people cited above said $A huge deal worth 3.25 lakh crores. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is an important system architecture document that controls and defines all critical protocols between the system and its subsystems. As per the proposal approved by DAC, 18 fighters will be delivered in flight status from France while the remaining 96 fighters will be manufactured in India with an indigenous content of more than 25%.
Read also: Indian Air Force plan for FY 2026-27: Rafale and transport aircraft deals
Amid reports that the mega deal has hit a snag with French Rafale manufacturer Dassault refusing to hand over the “source code” of the fighter to India, senior Defense Ministry officials confirmed to Hindustan Times that no country is providing these proprietary software codes (which control the radars, electronic warfare suite and weapons integration) to any third country, and the deal remains on track. The “source codes” actually control the entire fighter including avionics, target tracking, flight control, weapons firing, and weapons firing algorithms. Officials added that the code is the intellectual property of the original equipment manufacturer, and is not shared even with the closest allies.
While Russia, India’s long-term strategic ally, has offered two squadrons of fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft to the Indian Air Force and is involved in upgrading the existing Su-30 MKI fighter fleet with state-owned HAL, it has never participated or offered to share source codes for any of these fighters, HT has learnt. The same is true for US aircraft manufacturers that have an Indian transport fleet and an attack helicopter fleet made up of US air platforms.
Although India has not taken any decision on procuring fifth-generation aircraft either from the US or Russia, it is focusing on indigenous development of the Tejas Mark IA along with long-range, twin-engine AMCA missiles for the future in order to reduce dependence on foreign air platforms, beyond visual range air-to-air, and air-to-surface missiles.
