Our choice to go with Reliance: Dassault clarifies on Rafale deal

September 22, 2018 08:33

After former French president Francois Hollande's bombshell that the Indian government had proposed Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as the India partner in the multi-million dollar Rafale jet deal and not given them a choice, Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, said it has decided to make a partnership with the Reliance in accordance with the policy of 'Make in India'.

"This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd joint-venture in February 2017. Dassault Aviation and Reliance have built a plant in Nagpur for manufacturing parts for Falcon and Rafale aircraft," the company said in a statement.

"This is Dassault Aviation's choice, as CEO Eric Trappier had explained in an interview published in MINT newspaper on April 17, 2018. This partnership has led to the creation of the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint-venture in February 2017," the company stated.

The French aviation company also said that contracts were signed with companies other than Reliance as well, as part of the offsets contract under the Rafale deal.

"Other partnerships have been signed with other companies such as BTSL, DEFSYS, Kinetic, Mahindra, Maini, SAMTEL,. Other negotiations are ongoing with hundred-odd other potential partners," the firm divulged.

The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating procurement of 126 Rafale jets.

The Congress has also alleged that the government was benefitting Reliance Defence through the deal as the company has set up a joint venture with Dassault Aviation to execute the offset obligation for the deal.

The opposition parties have also alleged that the Reliance Defence was formed just 12 days before the announcement of the Rafale deal by the prime minister on 10 April 2015. The Reliance group has rejected the charges.

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