India seeks Rafale deal with focus on local manufacturing, co-development: MEA

India’s defence engagement with France is being structured around expanding domestic manufacturing capabilities, with New Delhi pushing for greater co-development, co-designing and co-production of military platforms, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Sunday.

The comments came amid ongoing discussions over the proposed acquisition of 114 Rafale fighter jets from France, with Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri saying India’s priority is to maximise local production and strengthen the country’s defence industrial base.

Briefing the media on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s France visit, Misri said the Indian Air Force’s existing operation of Rafale aircraft has led to continued discussions between the two governments and their air forces on future cooperation.

He said India’s position has consistently been to align defence acquisitions with the “Make in India” initiative and increase indigenous involvement in design, manufacturing and production.

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The Foreign Secretary noted that discussions during the Prime Minister’s visit extended beyond the Rafale platform and covered a broad spectrum of defence cooperation between the two countries.

”While today’s discussions covered various topics beyond the Rafale, the underlying theme was that for any defence platform under consideration, we must proceed with the fundamental objective of maximising local content and local manufacturing; our cooperation should be structured with this in mind,” Misri said.

His remarks came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded the first leg of his visit to France in Nice, during which he held bilateral and delegation-level talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and jointly inaugurated the Bharat Innovates 2026 conclave.

Earlier this month, India issued a 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 month 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 year, sources said.

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 threats, and that may take the number of Rafales in the country to over 200.

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.

With inputs from agencies