– Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: The country located in North Europe – Sweden has come forward to fulfill the demand of the Indian Air Force. The Swedish Company SAAB made a bold tender pitch in which the country is ready to provide 114 Gripen fighter aircraft to India at half the price of Rafale fighter jet.
India paid an estimated price of 216.7 Million Euros (Rs 1,820.9 Crore) apiece for the Rafale in the 2016 deal. Without the weapons package, the cost was approximately 194.4 Million Euros (Rs 1,633.5 Crore).
The current Gripen price, as disclosed by Skogberg, is 125 Million Euros (Rs 1,050.4 Crore) with the weapons package and 101.6 Million Euros (Rs 853.7 Crore) for the bare aircraft.
Magnus Skogberg is Gripen Campaign Director for Finland.
Skogberg revealed that the price offered for 64 Gripen E fighters is 6.5 Billion Euros, which includes the cost of a sustainment package for a decade as well as the transfer of technology to Finland. The weapons package has been offered for an additional 1.5 Billion Euros.
This weapons package is similar in capability to the one India has acquired in the 7.8 Billion Euro deal for 36 Rafale fighters. It includes the Meteor, IRIS-T, KEPD-350 Taurus, and the Spear.
However, The Rafale is a larger twin-engine aircraft and therefore more expensive but SAAB is pitching its single-engine aircraft as a dramatically cheaper solution for the same role.
To illustrate its claim on a massive price advantage, SAAB disclosed its price bid for an ongoing tender for 64 fighter aircraft for Finland, also known as the HX Fighter program.
In 2012, the French Rafale was declared the winner of India’s elaborated competition to purchase 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). The Gripen was one of the contenders in that tender. At that time, it could not meet the technical requirements of the IAF.
SAAB is now extrapolating the figures in Finland’s HX Fighter Programme to India’s emerging competition – where the stakes are much higher – to provide contemporary comparisons. “We expect the RFP to be out in the first half of next year,” Mats Palmberg, Head of Gripen India Campaign, said.
Palmberg, who seeks to pitch an offer to India at a price similar to that offered to Finland, rejects the view that the IAF’s firm commitment to the indigenous TEJAS – which seemed tentative a few years ago – will kill the market for foreign single-engine fighters like the Gripen and the F-16/F-21.