Boeing and Lockheed Martin have been told that their fighter jets will not be considered for a $11-billion order and India is restricting its choice to two European-made planes. India was only considering France?s Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, produced by a consortium of European companies for one of the world?s biggest defence deals. Lockheed Martin?s F-16 and Boeing?s F/A-18 Super Hornet, along with Russia?s MiG-35 and Sweden?s Saab JAS-39, did not meet the Indian Air Force?s technical requirements and were disqualified. ?That information is correct. The four have been disqualified,? an official said.
The order for 126 air and ground attack fighters has been keenly contested by global defence firms and has seen lobbying from US President Barack Obama, France?s Nicholas Sarkozy and Russia?s Dmitry Medvedev. Obama had taken this up with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to India and followed it up with a letter highlighting this contract as being important to his administration. With two players ? Lockheed Martin and Boeing ? in the fray, US authorities were extremely hopeful and had been stepping up political pressure. This was also the key issue brought up at the meeting of the Indo-US Defence Policy Group.
India?s decision on a final bidder is likely be based not only on technology and price, but also on its desire to diversify from its traditional Russian deals and expand strategic alliances with the United States and Europe.
A spokesperson of Lockheed said the company was told by US authorities that Washington would respond to the Indian defence ministry?s letter on the competition. Saab, in a statement from Sweden, said its plane was not shortlisted for the bid. A Boeing spokesperson did not respond to requests for a comment. Other officials were not immediately available for comment.
Taking the decision on technical evaluation, the government has told the US that its two companies bidding for the $11-billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract are now out of the fray. Sources said only two of the six companies will be called into extend their commercial bids.
This decision was prompted by the fact that commercial bids for all six players were to expire by the end of this month. The government had the choice of asking all six to extend their commercial bids and keep the suspense alive. But given the deep interest being shown by the political leaderships of the countries behind the bidders, the government possibly thought it appropriate not to prolong the decision-making process.
It is learnt that the two US contenders ? the F-16IN Super Viper and the F/A-18 Super Hornet ? did not match up in technical trials. In fact, sources indicated that only the French Rafale and Eurofighter were the two to have made it to the next round and have been invited to extend their commercial bids for further negotiations. The other two contenders were the Russian MiG-35 and the Swedish Gripen.
The defence ministry is committed to complete the entire negotiation process by March next. Going by that deadline, any decision based on the technical evaluation process would have had to be taken before the expiry of the commercial bids.