France Submits Bid For Indian Tender, Offers 26 Rafale Marine Jets

France has responded to India’s request for bids on 26 Rafale Marine jets for the Indian Navy’s INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya aircraft carriers. This is a big deal.

France has sent their answer to India’s Letter of Acceptance to New Delhi.

They said that a group of French government officials who deal with selling weapons to other countries flew over from Paris to give the response to the Indian tender.

According to them, the Indian side will look closely at the French bid for the Indian deal. This will include looking at the commercial offer or price for the plane as well as other parts of the contract.

India will now talk about the deal with French government officials since it is between two governments.

The head of the Navy has told the officials to make sure that the project’s deadline is pushed back a lot so that the planes can be finished and added to the fleet as soon as possible.

India sent the Letter of Request to the French government more than a month ago. They said that the LoR is like a bid document in which the Indian government lists all the features and specs it wants in the Rafale Marine planes that it wants to buy for the aircraft carriers INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya.

The Indian Navy and the Indian government are working quickly to make sure that the acquisition contract is    signed as soon as possible so that Indian carriers can use the highly capable planes to give New Delhi an edge in the Indian Ocean region.

The Defense Acquisition Council approved the deal for the planes, which is worth about €5.5 billion. It happened right before Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to France as a state guest for their Bastille Day parade in July.

Plans call for the Indian Navy to get 22 Rafale Marine planes with single seats and four trainer planes.