Defence budget grows nominally, but fails to beat rising inflation

It covers spending on the so-called Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), which amount to over a million armed personnel under the Ministry of Home Affairs

The finance minister and defence minister have in recent years claimed a rise in the country’s total defence allocation.

According to them, defence allocation rose from Rs 5.93 trillion in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) to Rs 6.21 trillion in FY25, up 4.75 per cent.
 

While that is true, the rise is insufficient to cover even the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) consumer price index (CPI) inflation, which stands at 5.4 per cent this year. Nor do these figures add to the rise in the cost of forex.
 

The cost of the dollar has gone up by 1.2 per cent this