Budget 2025-26 must prioritise defence and security over welfare schemes

India's growing external and internal threats demand urgent shifts in fiscal focus to strengthen defence, policing, and cyber capabilities

Budget-as-usual is not an option for Narendra Modi and his finance minister this time. While normal obsessions about growth, jobs, infrastructure and fiscal balance will always remain important, Budget 2025-26 has to focus on something that has been screaming for attention for long: External and internal security.

 

Defence spending takes up one-eighth of the Budget, and possibly accounts for about 2-2.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the upper end figure being an estimate made by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for 2023. The small, single-digit increase budgeted for this fiscal (2024-25) is barely enough to cover for