Bazooka hits military’s hopes of modernisation

The defence budget was hiked by a measly 6 per cent to Rs 274,114 crore ($40.42 billion), dashing hopes of any major jump in military modernisation this year despite heightened tensions with Pakistan and the ever-expanding military capabilities of China.

The defence outlay works out to 1.63 per cent of the projected GDP for 2017-18, the lowest figure since the 1962 war with China. Though this figure has been steadily declining in percentage terms as the economy expands, military experts contend it should be over 2.5 per cent to ensure the armed forces are capable of tackling the "collusive threat" from Pakistan and China.

Moreover, the defence budget includes a capital outlay of just Rs 86,488 crore for new weapons systems and modernisation, which is dwarfed by the revenue expenditure (day-to-day running costs, salaries, etc) of Rs 172,774 crore. Another Rs 14,852 crore has been earmarked for civil works, ordnance factories, BRO, etc, under miscellaneous expenditure.

The defence budget does not include Rs 85,740 crore separately allocated for defence pensions. Apart from announcing a centralised defence travel system for serving military personnel, finance minister Arun Jaitley said "a comprehensive web-based interactive pension disbursement system" will be established to "reduce grievances of defence pensioners".