Army vice-chief criticises ‘insufficient’ budget
Expressing grave concern over the “insufficient” allocation of funds for new weaponry, a top army general has told the parliamentary standing committee on defence that the Budget announced on February 1“has dashed our hopes ”.
A draft report by the committee that Business Standard has reviewed notes that the army has been allocated just ~268.2 billion for equipment modern is at ion against the ~445.7 billion it had sought. That is barely 60 percent of its request.
The navy’ s and air force’ s capital budget requests were slashed even more drastically. Against ~357 billion the navy sought, it has been allocated ~200 billion, only 56 percent of its requirement. The worst hit is the air force, which was allocated ~357.7 billion against its projection of ~777 billion, barely 45 per cent of its needs.
The defence committee is chaired by Major General BC K hand uri( retired ), and includes 21 Lok Sabha and eight Raj ya S ab ha members. These include former prime minister H DD eve Gowda, M ur li Man oh ar J os hi, Kalraj Mishra, Am bika Soni and Subramanian Swamy.
De posing before them, the army’s vice-chief, Lieutenant General Sara th Ch and, said “the marginal increase in BE (Budget Estimates) barely accounts for inflation and does not even cater to taxes.”
Typically, the three services submit their projection sin the third quarter of each year, for which they add up “committed liabilities ”( annual inst al men ts due on purchases previously made) and “new schemes”, for which they calculate the first inst al men ton new acquisitions likely in the coming year.
But Ch and de posed before the committee that the army’ s capital allocation this year “is insufficient even to cater to committed payment of ~290.3 billion for 125 on-going schemes, emergency procurements ,10( I )( or the urgent procurement of ammunition for 10 days of intense war) and other DGOF (director-general ordnance factory) requirements.”
Further, Ch and stated :“Committed liabilities of 2017, which will also be passed onto 2018 will further accentuate the situation …[ and] will hardly leave any funds for new schemes in 2018-19.”
This was of serious concern, he said, given the state of army equipment. “Typically, any modern Armed Force (sic) should have one-third of forces, one third of its equipment in the vintage category, one-third in the current category and one-third in the state of the art category. As far as we are concerned, the state today is 68 percent of our equipment is in the vintage category, with just about 24 percent in the current, and 8 percent in the state-of-the-art category ”, Ch and told the committee.
The army’s vice-chief stated that, leave alone fresh capital acquisition, the prime minister’s vision of “Make in India”, which focused on greater indigenisation, would be badly affected. “We in the army have identified as many as 25 projects for Make in India. However, there is not adequate budget to support this. As a result of which, many of these may end up foreclosed,” said Chand.
High value and prestigious projects to indigenously develop a Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) and a Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) were also likely to be scuppered by a lack of funds. Chand said “with the kind of Budget that has been allocated, these may be delayed by a few years. I am not sure what is going to be their future.”
The pa red-down capital allocations this year are not a one-off case. A summary of the previous years’ projection sand actual allocations illustrates that this has been the pattern in the past as well.
As in previous years, the committee has called on the government to remedy the situation. The draft report notes: “The Committee opine that keeping in view the likely cost escalation due to inflation ,[ the increase over last year’ s budget] is quite minimal to meet requirements of capital acquisition and other works planned for 2018-19. Therefore, the committee would like the Ministry of Defence to strongly put its case before the Ministry of Finance for adequate allocation of funds, commensurate with the requirement of Modern is at ion and acquisition plans for 2018-19(sic).”