Air force, navy stare at fund crunch next fiscal

NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force will not have funds to pay for platforms and equipment they have agreed to buy (or have actually bought) in the past years in the coming financial year 2019-2020, unless the government allocates more money to them.

The Indian Army is better off, but in general the forces face a cash crunch, a senior defence ministry official, who did not want to be named, said.

The official’s assessment, corroborated by analysts and other experts HT spoke to, is based on the capital expenditure allocated to the forces in the interim budget 2019-2020, and their so-called committed liabilities towards capital purchases.

Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has already been briefed about this and has taken it up with the finance ministry, this person added.

A defence ministry spokesperson did not respond to a query Committed liabilities are annual instalments for ongoing capital projects such as building or purchasing warships, aircraft, missile systems, etc

Indian Navy

Indian Air Force

Indian Army

seeking comment.

All told, the interim budget al l ocates ~ 1 . 0 3 l akh c r ore towards the capital expenditure of the three forces.

Of this, the Indian Navy has been allotted ~23,156.43 crore. The committed liabilities for

capital acquisition of the Indian Navy is ~25,461 crore, a second senior official dealing with the budget allocation in the ministry of defence said on the condition of anonymity. Committed liabilities are instalments paid annu-