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World Air Force News - India
 
 
Eurofighter Typhoon or Rafale Dassault the next fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force.
 
India will choose the winner of the project to supply 126 fighters for country's air forces this month, Times of India said on Saturday quoting sources in country's Defense Ministry. All eyes are on Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale as to who would get go-ahead for the mega-deal. Both the short-listed companies are lobbying hard for the $10.4 billion deal.
     
     
     
The Defence Acquisitions Council, chaired by defence minister A K Antony, on Friday approved the offsets evaluation reports of the Eurofighter Typhoon (backed by UK, Germany, Spain and Italy) and the French Rafale Dassault jets. The other contenders, the American, Russian and Swedish jets, were earlier ejected out of the race after long-drawn technical evaluation and field trials.

"All the spade work for opening of the commercial bids of Eurofighter and Rafale has now been completed. It will be done towards the end of this month,'' said an official.

It will, however, take at least two-three weeks to determine the lowest bidder (L-1) after the bids are opened. "Huge amounts of mathematical and data verification of the lifecycle costs of operating the jets over a 40-year period, with 6,000 hours of flying, as well as cost of ToT (transfer of technology) will have to be done,'' he added. Final commercial negotiations with the L-1 vendor will then begin before the contract is ready for signing by early-2012.

Under terms of the tender the winner is to invest 50 percent of the contract in jets production in India. The first 18 fighters will be imported, while another 108 will be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics, the paper said.