Budgeting for Indian Defence: Issues of Contemporary Relevance

Despite consuming huge amounts of national resources year after year, India’s defence expenditure has not generated the required public debate. One of the chief reasons for such inadequate public debate is the lack of awareness on defence related issues in general and defence budgets in particular. This is a rather strange phenomenon considering the fact that unlike many other developing countries, a wide of range of data is published by the Government of India on defence expenditure.  Lack of awareness n issues related to defence budgets is also borne out of the fact that although there is a lot of published literature on public finance of the country, there are hardly a couple of authoritative books published on India’s defence spending. Scant published literature on the subject is considered odd, on a sector which consumes close to 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and about 15 per cent of the central Government expenditure (CGE). While the current book doesn’t profess to fill the ‘knowledge gaps’ in the domain of defence expenditure, it attempts to highlight certain crucial issues related to the subject, each of which has vast scope for further research. This book is an attempt to bring out the elementary aspects pertaining to defence budgeting in India, inter alia highlighting the trends in defence expenditure over the past one decade. The context of defence budgeting and how it fits into the overall national budgeting system have been explained. Since the exercise of defence budgeting cannot be seen in isolation of defence planning, the linkages between defence planning and budgeting, including the gaps that exist in the current system have been brought out. The issue of self-reliance in defence procurement of defence imports and the pitfalls in indigenous defence production have been touched upon from the budgetary point of view. Since understanding the basics of defence budgeting of two of point of view. Since understanding the basic of defence budgeting of two of India’s largest neighbours i.e. China and Pakistan is important in the overall strategic matrix of the South Asian region, a chapter each has been devoted in respect of these countries. Finally, a few challenges confronting the defence financial management have been highlighted. It is hoped that this book will be useful for anyone seeking to understand the basic aspects of defence budgeting, besides research scholars of strategic affairs, officers of the armed forces and Indian defence Accounts Service.