Defence budget inadequate, allocation should go up: Panel

The defence budget of Rs 2.81 lakh crore for next fiscal is woefully inadequate for modernisation of the armed forces and may affect military preparedness, a parliamentary panel said on Thursday, strongly pitching for boosting the allocation.

Coming down hard on the government for meagre increase in allocation for armed forces in the last few years, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence said the outlay cannot even fulfill the basic requirements of the armed forces.

The Committee said it was in agreement with the Defence Ministry that the marginal growth of budgetary allocation is not at all sufficient and the Finance Ministry must consider increasing the funds for modernisation of the services.

"The Committee is distressed to note that no positive response has been received from the Ministry of Finance regarding augmentation of budgetary allocation to the Defence," the panel said. Although Defence Ministry has been assuring the panel that funds crunch will not suffer critical requirements of services, the Committee asserted that there is no way in which inadequate allocations do not adversely defence preparedness.