January 09, 2012: After getting stuck at the Finance Ministry for months, the weapons package for India's upgraded Mirage 2000s was finally cleared last week, with the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) gave its stamp of approval to a $1.2-billion deal for 490 MBDA MICA IR/radar-guided beyond visual range air-to-air missiles (BVRAAM).

The MICA will be the primary air superiority stand-off weapon in the IAF Mirage's new avatar. With a stated operational range anywhere between 500m and 80-km, the MICA has been recognised by the IAF as one of the most versatile munitions in the market today, but also one of the costliest. While MBDA has refused to confirm numbers of price, figures in the public domain would suggest that India will be buying the MICAs at over $2-million a piece. In December, two IAF Mirage-2000s proceeded to France to begin the $2.2-billion upgrade programme being conducted by Dassault and Thales.

The remaining 49 aircraft will be upgraded by HAL in Bangalore with transferred technology. Like the Mirage upgrade deal, the MICA deal with MBDA has an offsets component of 30 per cent that the French company will have to plough back into India. Sources reveal that this could be partly through Bharat Dynamics Ltd, which is still to absorb advanced technology in a meaningful way.

MBDA has also been pitching the VL (vertically launched) MICA to the Indian Navy for the ship-borne air defence role. On the Mirage 2000, the MICA takes over the roles so far played by the Matra Magic II short-srange fire and forget IR-guided missile and the active radar guided Matra Super 530D medium range missile.