New Delhi, Feb. 16: Anil Ambani-run Reliance Aerostructure today tied up with France's Dassault Aviation for an avionics company to make parts and spares for the Rafale fighter jets that Dassault will supply to Indian Air Force in a Rs 60,000- crore deal.

Dassault had pledged that 50 per cent worth of manufacturing for the jets would be sourced from India under an offset clause, and the joint venture with Ambani will play a key role to meet the obligation.

The Ambani entity will have a 51 per cent stake in the new company -Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) - while the French aircraft maker will have the remaining stake.

Sources said the company would initially make spares and could later build an assembly line if India orders more fighters from Dassault.

Dassault last September undertook to sell India the Rafale jets in an off-the-shelf deal against an earlier bid they had won to manufacture them in the country.

The contract comes with the 50-per-cent offset clause, which implies that Rs 30,000-crore worth of orders would have to be placed locally.

DRAL is expected to be the main company that will fulfil this offset clause.

However, Dassault is obviously hoping for more orders, possibly with a rider that those jets are initially only assembled and later built here.

"DRAL has finalised the infrastructure requirements at Dhirubhai Aerospace Park at Mihan, Nagpur, and the construction work for the greenfield facility will start in May 2017, and production by end-2017," Reliance said in a statement today.

"DRAL will execute the programmes in phases, with Phase I resulting in the generation of more than 700 highly-skilled direct jobs and 2,800 indirect jobs."

Eric Trappier, chairman of Dassault Aviation France, and Anil Ambani will co-chair DRAL.

Earlier, Pipavav port, controlled by Ambani, won a major deal to repair and maintain ships of the US 7th fleet.

Ambani has also set up a separate joint venture between his Reliance Defence and Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to manufacture air-to-air missiles.

Dassault had in the past negotiated to make fighters in the country. Sources said talks at that time had got stuck over the French company's unwillingness to tie up with state-run HAL

Swedish aircraft maker Saab has also offered to make its Gripen E jets for Indian Navy.