MoD informs LS about budget shortage for defence forces

The Defence Ministry on Wednesday informed the Lok Sabha that the army, air force and navy didn't receive nearly half of their estimated demands from the Finance Ministry because of which schemes will have to be "reprioritised."

The shortfall is maximum for the air force that didn't get almost 54% of its projected demand for capital acquisition. The Air headquarters asked for almost Rs 77,700 crore but received only Rs 35,800 crore.

Similarly the budgetary gap for the navy is 45% as against the projected demand of Rs 37,932 crore for capital purchase. For the Army, the hiatus is 40% as it was allocated nearly Rs 27,000 crore instead of the original demand of Rs 44,572 crore.

"If required, the schemes will be reprioritized to ensure that urgent and critical capabilities are acquired without any compromise to operational preparedness," Subhash Bhamre, the Minister of State for Defence informed the Lok Sabha in a written response.

Bhamre didn't elaborate on Lok Sabha member Manoj Rajoria's query on how the shortage of funds would impact the armed forces.

Responding to another query two weeks ago, the minister stated that the defence expenditure (without pension) as percentage of GDP declined from 2.1% in 2014-15 to 1.66% in 2017-18.

Earlier deposing before a Parliamentary Standing Committee, Army Vice Chief Lt Gen Sarath Chand said that the military's hope with the budget had been dashed because the allocation was not even adequate to pay for the "committed liabilities."

Similar sentiments were narrated by the navy top brass as well. The committed liability for the Navy was Rs 25,106 crore, whereas it received an allocation of Rs 15,083 crore. This has been the case for the last three financial years.

On the revenue heads- required to pay salary and pay for fuel and other running expenses- there is a shortfall too, but the gap is narrower.