Defence forces can go shopping again

The net increase in outlay is Rs 6,000 crore over the last year.

The defence budget for 2005-06 went up to Rs 83,000 crore from Rs 77,000 crore in 2004-05, an unremarkable increase of 7.8 per cent. What stands out is that three Services spent all the money they were allocated under the capital head.

Although the capital outlay this year, at Rs 34,472 crore, is an increase of just Rs 1,000 crore over the last year's arms acquisition funding of Rs 33,472 crore, in actual terms it amounts to fresh allocation as the ministry has not returned any money unused, for the first time in five years.

This clears the decks for major arms acquisition programmes like buying killer-hunter Scorpene submarines from France, long-range SMERCH rocket system from Russia and low-level transportable radar, all of which have been pending for more than a year with the Cabinet Committee on Security.

The capital outlay constitutes 41.4 per cent of the total defence budget. The net increase in outlay is Rs 6,000 crore over last year's levels.

The heads under which capital outlays have gone up are mainly to fund an accelerated construction programme for the Army (up from Rs 1,368 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 2,233 crore this year); and the purchase of equipment by the Navy for which the allocation has gone up to Rs 1,167 crore from Rs 496 crore last year.

Allocations for the Rashtriya Rifles have gone up from Rs 10 crore to Rs 23.96 crore this year, indicating that an aggressive modernisation drive is on the anvil. There has also been an increase for the purchase of rolling stock from Rs 12.52 crore to Rs 95 .85 crore in this budget.

Labelling the hike in the allocation "good", Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said this signalled that modernisation drive in the armed forces would be given more momentum.

He said the increased allocation was a "huge step up" in this drive. "We almost have a sum of more than Rs 34,000 crore as fresh allocation. This will enable us to go ahead with the plan to acquire some vital hi-tech weapons systems".