Union Minister Babul Supriyo said on Thursday that Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) may have lost out on the Rafale deal because it quoted 2.57 times more man-hours to build fighter jets.
At a conference organised by CII on public sector industries, the Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries said HAL quoted “257 man-hours” for a job Dassault said could be done in “100 man-hours”.
Stating that there may be political controversies over the issue, the minister said his limited point was about economics. “I am just saying that we need to definitely look into why something that can be made in 100 hours would require 257 hours. Are we faltering somewhere? Can we bring it down? Can we negotiate on that? These are small areas that need to be looked into,” he said, adding that the government was doing its best to help public sector enterprises.