By Ajit Dubey

New Delhi (India), June 1 (ANI) In a major development, India has issued the Letter of Request (LoR) to France for the mega government-to-government deal worth around Rs 3.25 lakh crore to buy 114 Rafale fighter jets for the Indian Air Force.

Top Defence Ministry sources told ANI that the Letter of Request was issued last week by the Acquisition Wing of the Defence Ministry to the French government officials for the deal. The deal would see 94 Rafale jets being manufactured in India by the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation in partnership with an Indian company.

The French side is expected to reply to the Indian Letter of Request or tender in the next two to three months and the two sides are likely to conclude the negotiations and the deal within the next one year, they said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit France around mid-June, and the Rafale deal is also expected to come up for discussions during the meetings with the French leadership.

India is facing a critical shortage of fighter aircraft squadrons in its inventory and has been making efforts to deal with the shortfall by inducting the advanced 4.5-generation-plus Rafale aircraft in large numbers.

While the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy have placed orders for 62 Rafale planes already, the 114 Rafale order will take the numbers to 176. The Indian Navy has also already expressed its intent to induct 31 more of these planes to tackle maritime threat and that may take the number of Rafales in the country to over 200.The

Defence Ministry had carried out a major study under Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh to enhance the capability of the Indian Air Force soon after he took over in 2024 and the Defence Ministry has been working towards that in a focused manner.

The Defence Acquisition Council had cleared the Indian Air Force proposal to acquire the 114 Rafale jets over four months ago.

The Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh is in France and may visit the French facilities of Dassault Aviation where the fighter jet is manufactured.

As part of the deal, this would be the first time ever that the Rafale aircraft will be manufactured outside France with around 50 per cent localisation.

'First time 'Make in India,' Rafale outside France backed up by a government-to-government agreement, no intermediaries, full transparency in the project itself, G2G significant levels of localisation, and full authority to integrate Indian weapons and Indian systems are the highlights of this programme. It also enables us to induct fighter aircraft relatively quickly because the first of the Rafale Marines will start coming in '28, and after that, over a period of time, you will see that about three-and-a-half years from now, the first of these Air Force Rafales will also start coming,' the Defence Secretary had told ANI after the clearance of the proposal by the DAC in February this year. (ANI)