<p>The negotiations over the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets have enered the "final stages" as both India and France have managed to narrow down their differences over the pricing.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Government sources said that the deal has not been concluded yet but it is in "final stages".<br /><br />The development came nearly four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande signed a memorandum of agreement (MoU) to purchase 36 Rafale combat jets.<br /><br />The Indian side has been negotiating hard to bring down the price of the Rafale deal.<br />Sources said the price for 36 Rafales, as per the UPA tender, keeping the cost escalation and dollar rate in mind, comes to a little over Rs 65,000 crore. This includes the cost involved in making changes India has sought in the aircraft, including Israeli helmet mounted display and some specific weaponry, among others.<br /><br />"The effort is to bring down the price to less than Euros 8 billion (Rs 59,000 crore)," the sources said.<br /><br />Sources said the French have more or less agreed to Indian terms.<br />The expectation is that the final deal will be clinched by May-end.<br /><br />The deal comes with the clause of delivering 50 per cent offsets, creating business worth at least 3 billion Euros for smaller Indian companies and creating thousands of new jobs in India through the offsets.<br /><br />In fact, the toughest phase in the negotiations that began in July 2015 - three months after Modi announced in Paris India's plan to purchase 36 Rafale jets - was to get the French to agree to 50 per cent offsets in the deal.<br /><br />Initially, Dassault Aviation was willing to agree to reinvest only 30 per cent of the value of its contract in Indian entities to meet the offset obligations.<br /><br />The French side finally agreed to invest 50 per cent of the value following a phone conversation between Modi and Hollande late last year.<br /><br />The commercial negotiations, as in the pricing of the planes, equipment and other issues, actually began only in mid-January this year.<br /><br />Under the proposed deal, French companies apart from Dassault Aviation, will provide several aeronautics, electronics and micro-electronics technologies to comply with the offset obligation.<br /><br />Companies like Safran and Thales will join Dassault in providing state-of-art technologies in stealth, radar, thrust vectoring for missiles and materials for electronics and micro-electronics.</p>
<p>The negotiations over the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets have enered the "final stages" as both India and France have managed to narrow down their differences over the pricing.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Government sources said that the deal has not been concluded yet but it is in "final stages".<br /><br />The development came nearly four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande signed a memorandum of agreement (MoU) to purchase 36 Rafale combat jets.<br /><br />The Indian side has been negotiating hard to bring down the price of the Rafale deal.<br />Sources said the price for 36 Rafales, as per the UPA tender, keeping the cost escalation and dollar rate in mind, comes to a little over Rs 65,000 crore. This includes the cost involved in making changes India has sought in the aircraft, including Israeli helmet mounted display and some specific weaponry, among others.<br /><br />"The effort is to bring down the price to less than Euros 8 billion (Rs 59,000 crore)," the sources said.<br /><br />Sources said the French have more or less agreed to Indian terms.<br />The expectation is that the final deal will be clinched by May-end.<br /><br />The deal comes with the clause of delivering 50 per cent offsets, creating business worth at least 3 billion Euros for smaller Indian companies and creating thousands of new jobs in India through the offsets.<br /><br />In fact, the toughest phase in the negotiations that began in July 2015 - three months after Modi announced in Paris India's plan to purchase 36 Rafale jets - was to get the French to agree to 50 per cent offsets in the deal.<br /><br />Initially, Dassault Aviation was willing to agree to reinvest only 30 per cent of the value of its contract in Indian entities to meet the offset obligations.<br /><br />The French side finally agreed to invest 50 per cent of the value following a phone conversation between Modi and Hollande late last year.<br /><br />The commercial negotiations, as in the pricing of the planes, equipment and other issues, actually began only in mid-January this year.<br /><br />Under the proposed deal, French companies apart from Dassault Aviation, will provide several aeronautics, electronics and micro-electronics technologies to comply with the offset obligation.<br /><br />Companies like Safran and Thales will join Dassault in providing state-of-art technologies in stealth, radar, thrust vectoring for missiles and materials for electronics and micro-electronics.</p>