The government has said there is no proposal to buy Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force at the moment. “There is no immediate proposal to procure F-16 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force. Details of agreements entered into by Indian companies in this regard are not held by the government,” minister of state for defence Subhash Bhamre said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. “Any future procurement of fighter jets for the Indian Air Force would be undertaken under the extant procurement procedures,” Bhambre said. In June this year at the Paris Air show, Tata Group and Lockheed Martin had signed a deal to jointly produce the F-16 fighter jets in India.
Under the deal, Lockheed will shift its Fort Worth, Texas plant to India. Earlier this week, Bhamre was asked in the Rajya Sabha if India and the US have agreed for transfer of sophisticated technology and production of F-16 fighter jets under ‘Make in India’. The minister replied in the negative.
As reported earlier by FE, despite the overdrive by the US-based Lockheed Martin aerospace giants, sources had told FE, “No decision for the aircraft suitable to meet the immediate needs of the IAF is expected to be taken in the next six months.” Sources also confirmed to FE that, “During discussions between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US President Donald Trump the topic of moving the production line of the Lockheed Martin’s F-16 Block 70/72 to India was not even on the table.”
Lockheed Martin (LM) has offered to move its lone production line of the latest version of fighter aircraft F 16-Block 70/72 to India from Texas to meet Indian and global requirement with a condition: the Indian Air Force (IAF) has to choose the world’s largest-sold fighter aircraft for its fleet. The Block 70/72 F-16 that is proposed is nothing but the same Block 60 aircraft developed for the UAE air force. This was the same aircraft that participated in the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft competition, to supply 126 multi-role combat aircraft to the Indian Air Force (IAF) evaluation and was rejected, along with Swedish SAAB ‘Gripen’ in 2011.