India’s defence expenditure has been raised 3.98 per cent to Rs.147,344 crore (Rs.1.47 trillion/$32 billion) in the budget for fiscal 2010-11 presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The four per cent increase, the lowest since 2001. The capital acquisition budget — for new acquisitions — is only 40 per cent of the total money allocated to the Defence Ministry.
This year, the Defence Ministry has not spend Rs 7,000 crore that had been allocated for modernisation of the forces. Army has been the biggest loser with close to Rs 3,000 crore earmarked to buy new equipment and for construction works being returned. The Navy has not managed to spend close to Rs 1,500 crore that had been marked for upgrading the naval fleet while the Air Force has also returned a substantial amount planned for acquisitions of aircraft and aero systems.
The biggest gainer is the Indian Air Force that has been allocated Rs 15,205 crore to purchase aircraft and aero-engines, which may include finalising a fresh deal to buy 50 additional Su-30 MKI fighters and zeroing on an imported engine for LCA Navy. Capital allocation for the naval fleet has been augmented from Rs 5,901 crore to Rs 6,950 crore indicating possible purchase of new battleships from Russia.
The Army, too, has an enhanced budget in this category — from Rs 355 crore in the last fiscal to Rs 637 crore this year — which may be an indicator of sealing a deal to buy helicopters as a replacement of ageing Cheetah and Chetaks. Rather surprisingly, the allocation for defence ordnance factories has been slashed by Rs.1,835 crore to Rs.1,999 crore against Rs.3,834 crore in the previous fiscal.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has got a hike of Rs.881 crore to Rs.5,260 crore from its revised allocation of Rs.4,379 crore in the previous fiscal.
The largest weapons buyer among emerging countries, India has imported military hardware worth 28 billion dollars since 2000 mainly from Russia, Israel, France and Britain. India, which last month inducted its longest range nuclear-tipped missile into the army, has plans to spend up to US$30 billion ($42 billion) on modernising its military.
No comments:
Post a Comment