On Wednesday, The NDA government tabled the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report which pertains to its findings on the controversial Rafale deal. The report reveals that the deal negotiated by the NDA was cheaper than that of the UPA proposed deal. The NDA government saved almost 17% with the India-specific enhancements made in the deal in 2015 and that the UPA deal's price benchmark was "unrealistically low."
The CAG report titled “Capital Acquisition in Indian Air Force, which is of 141 pages, has 32 pages dedicated to the Rafale deal. The report, a copy of which was accessed, has focused on the details of the deal for a period of five years, from 2012 to 2017. The report is divided into two sections - Volume 1 which contains seven chapters discussing the systematic issues in the acquisition process, while Volume 2 deals with the findings specific to the Rafale deal.
"However, prices have been redacted in the Report based on the insistence of the Ministry of Defence citing the Indo French Agreement of 2008 and the provisions of Inter Government Agreement (IGA)," a press statement by the CAG said.