(by Bhagyashree Pande)

While China is it eyeball to eyeball confrontion with India on the Doklam issue and is known for creating trouble across the border in Ladakh , Arunachal etc one needs to understand what is the Chinese military might vs Indian military might. As is well known that a country’s defense spend is the most direct way of gauging its military might. Over the years India’s defense spending has been substantial but there are two major concerns, first, 50% of its allocations are spent on pensions thereby hampering the actual spending on procurements, research and development of new weapons, ordinance factories etc. Second, defense allocations is being unspent for the past 2-3 years which is an area of concern at a time when we are facing onslaught form both our northern neighbours .

Here is a look at the budget figures – In the last ten years starting 2006-07 the outlay on actual procurements, fleet modernization and maintenance, buying equipment etc was Rs 15,333 cr, which has increased to Rs 86,488 cr in 2017. The trend since 2008 was that India overshot its budget allocations each year , but that trend has reversed since 2015 wherein the allocation was Rs 81967 crs but the money spent actually was Rs 73,401 cr(only 89% spent) , similarly in 2016 allocation was Rs 74299 cr but the actually spent was Rs 71650 cr (96% spent), similarly, in 2017 of the budgetary allocation of Rs 78586 the actual spending is reportedly around Rs 71700 cr (only 91% spent).

Though the expenses have been returned these are budgets that need to be relooked and reallocated to areas which are in dire need of funds in the defense sector say experts. However is there a need to relook deeply at our military might and how well we spend the money ? We may not get into a confrontation with our neighbours but money well spent on defense capabilities will give us a more confidence against any aggression on our territories and more confidence to our defense personnels.

Article by Bhagyashree Pande)
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