Insignificant amount for defence won't help tackle collusive threat of China, Pak: Expert

Defence Expert Major General (Retd.) P.K. Sehgal on Thursday said such an insignificant amount for defence in the Union Budget will not serve the purpose as India needs more force multipliers and force degraders keeping in mind the possibility of collusive threat of China and Pakistan at any point of time.

Major General (Retd.) Sehgal compared the defence budgets of India and China to justify his assertion.

"Our defence budget is in the region of 51 billion dollars where as the Chinese defence budget is declared four times to hundred million dollars and there is a huge gap between us and the Chinese capabilities for the last 32 to 35 years. If you look at their eleven trillion economy versus to 2.8 trillion economy of ours then China will continue to outpace India in every possible manner," Major General (Retd.) Sehgal told ANI.

"So, we have to catch up in a significant manner by inducting more force multipliers, force degraders as soon as possible. Because we may not be fortunate enough have the time of time that is really needed to secure this nation and secure its frontiers in an absolutely significant manner keeping in mind the possibility of collusive threat of China and Pakistan at any point of time," he added.

Major General (Retd.) Sehgal further said there is a huge amount of hollowness which needs to be immediately made up.

"Modernisation of the army, the navy and the air force is lagging behind in a very major way....the budget is a little disappointing as per the defence is concerned," he said.

However, responding to the overall Union Budget, Major General (Retd.) Sehgal said the budget is 'balanced' catering to all the needs of the nation.

"It is pro-poor, pro-farmers, pro- small business, pro-infrastructure," he said.

Announcing a modest increase of 5.6 percent in defence expenditure, the government earmarked Rs. 2,74,114.12 crore in the Union budget for the next fiscal.

In addition, an allocation of Rs. 8,57,140 crore for defence pensions was announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech yesterday.

The defence allocations for FY 17-18 are 12.77 percent of the total central government expenditure.

The amount allocated for defence at the budgetary stage in FY 16-17 was Rs 2,58,589.32 crore, which increased to Rs 2,59,480.13 crore at the Revised Estimates (RE) stage. With a 5.6 per cent increase over RE figures for FY 16-17, the increased defence allocation for FY 17-18 will only cover the inflation costs.