Modernisation of IA : Crying for Help
1.Why do we need it? Primarily for two major reasons. Defence budget falls drastically short of meeting the needs of capability development of the Armed Forces in general and Indian Army in particular. Its revenue to capital expenditure is around 87:13. Despite the defence budget being grossly inadequate to meet the needs of Defence Forces is four times the education budget and seven times the health budget. The pie being the same other sectors get sacrificed too. We are paying a huge price for such low allocation in the health sector in the current COVID19 pandemic which has been further heightened by Amphan cyclone in Bengal, Orissa and Bihar. Defence budget has grown in upwards of 65 % in the last five years whereas salaries which includes defence civilians has grown by 75% but it is the pensions budget that has grown phenomenally high by about 140%. Our pension budget is almost twice the Pakistani Defence Budget. A silver lining of reduction in pension budget once Defence Civilian Personnel inducted from 2004 start retiring due to their pension coming under the National Pension Scheme may also not help as number of Armed Forces Personnel will continue to grow due to better life expectancy and OROP commitment. High revenue liability leaves the Indian Army with very little for capital procurement. Read More…
