Fall Of Uf Govt May Stall Defence Deals

The fall of the United Front government has come as a blow to the defence establishment which is finalising its ninth plan envisaging an allocation of over Rs 200,000 crore.

Under Mulayam Singh Yadav, the defence ministry was able to secure the governments approval for several pending equipment purchase and modernisation schemes.

The final clearance for the purchase of Sukhoi-30 fighter planes from Russia, initiation of a scheme to re-equip the T-72 tanks and better facilities for defence forces were among the changes proposed to have been brought about by the Front government. Finance minister P Chidamba-rams budget for 1997-98 was a definite assertion of the pride of place for the defence forces. For the first time in eight years, defence allocation exceeded 15 per cent of the governments expenditure. This year, the budget increased the defence outlay by Rs 7,822 crore to Rs 35,620 against last fiscals Rs 27,798 crore. The total government expenditure for 1997-98 has been pegged at Rs 2,32,481 crore.

 

The 16.12 per cent rise in the allocation reversed the trend of falling defence expenditure seen during the five years of the previous Congress regime. The 1996-97 allocation was only marginally higher than 1995-96 allocation of Rs 26,879.

Breaking convention, the Front government had made an extra budgetary allocation of Rs 1,200 crore during December 1996 to meet urgent capital expenses.

Chidambaram also gladdened the hearts of soldiers by stating that if the highest hike in nearly a decade was insufficient, the government would not hesitate to earmark more funds.

However, while some defence officials sounded sceptical over any major changes being brought about by the budgetary hike, the fact remains that this was the highest allocation in a number of years.

Pressure from the armed forces combined with approvals from the parliamentary committees on defence prompted the Front government to commit increase in allocations, both under the revenue and capital expenditure heads of the defence budget.

It was expected that more capital expenditure matters would have been addressed in the 1998-99 budget as around Rs 3,200 crore in this fiscal had been set aside for meeting the additional expenses on account of the Fifth Pay Commission reports implementation.