Guns vs Butter-5: 'India can make do with defence spend of 2% of GDP'

The last of a 5-part series points out that the Standing Committee on Defence report says India will not be able to absorb much more on defence

The 35th Report of the 17th Lok Sabha’s Standing Committee on Defence, which was tabled before Parliament on March 21, reveals that successive defence budgets from FY19 to the most recent one — for FY24 — have steadily increased in real terms, but decreased as a proportion of the national economy (gross domestic product or GDP).

Defence allocations have also decreased steadily as a percentage of the central government expenditure (CGE) each year.

“The committee has been apprised that the total defence budget [including MoD (civil) and defence pensions] is Rs 593,537 crore for FY24, which is 13.18 per cent