Defence budget masks capital allocations to each service

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) this year presented the capital allocations for the defence budget in a new format, combining the capex budget for all three services into a single allocation, rather than allocating budgets for all the three services separately.

-  AJAI SHUKLA

As a result, Demand No. 21, pertaining to the "Capital Outlay on Defence Services" does not give out separate figures for the army, navy and each service air force.

The only way to estimate the capital allocation for each service is to calculate the allocations to each service over the preceding decade. Then, by assuming that a similar percentage of capex funding would be distributed among the three services this year, it can be broadly estimated what each service would be allocated in the coming financial year.

By such a calculation (see chart 1), it can be seen that over the preceding decade, the army has been allocated an average of 28 per cent of the defence capital budget, the allocation to the navy has been 31 per cent on average and the air force has been getting 41 per cent.

Applying this proportion to the coming year's capex allocation of ₹1.72 trillion, it is seen that the share of the army (28 per cent) amounts to ₹48,160 crore, that of the navy (31 per cent) comes to ₹53,320 crore, while the 41 per cent share of the air force comes to ₹70,520 crore. It requires to be noted that the calculated shares of the three services actually vary substantially. The army's share has varied over the last decade between 19.5 and 37 per cent; the navy's between 24.5 and 37 per cent, while the air force has been allocated between 33 and 48 per cent.

Another important set of figures that are ignored in the Union Budget are the capital requirements that are projected by each of the three services.