The government of India has finally cleared the biggest-ever global tender for purchasing 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft that may cross Rs 42,000 crore mark. With the government’s nod, the 6 years of suspense ended after the official announcement that stated as ‘process for procurement of the fighters had been cleared’.

According to Defence Ministry spokesman Sithansu Kar, the government would issue the Request for Proposals (RFP) possibly in the first week of August. With this deal, India will get 18 fighters in working condition and rest of the planes will be manufactured in India under the licence.

Further, there will be an option that apart from 126 fighters, India may go to option for 60-65 more jets if required in the future. And now, the race is on and the six contenders have been pushing each other to get the deal.

They are such as the French Rafale (Dassault), Eurofighter Typhoon (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies) and American F/A-18 ‘Super Hornet’ (Boeing) in the 25-30-tonne class.

They would take around six months to respond to the RFPs and would submit the separate technical and commercial bids in separate sealed envelopes. The ministry would evaluate the technical bids and then the field evaluation trials of the short listed fighters will be done.

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