The capital-intensive IAF has once again scored over the other two wings of the armed forces getting the lion’s share at Rs. 30,699 crore of capital outlay compared to the Army at Rs. 18,986 crore and the Navy at Rs. 13,008 crore.

Presenting the Union Budget in the Parliament on February 28, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced that he was allocating a sum of over Rs. 1,64,000 crore ($36 billion approximately) for defence spending during the financial year 2011-12. The coming year’s allocation shows an increase of about 11.6 per cent over the last year’s Rs. 1,47,000 crore ($32.6 billion) at the Revenue Estimate (RE) stage. Percentage wise, the Indian Army’s share works out to a hefty 50 per cent followed by the Indian Air Force (IAF) at roughly 30 per cent and the Indian Navy at 15 per cent. The remaining five per cent or so has been earmarked for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and its research establishments.

On the revenue side, the breakdown of expenditure stands at Rs. 64,521 crore for the manpower heavy Army while it remains much lower for other services with the Navy at Rs. 10,589 crore, Air Force at Rs. 15,928 crore and the DRDO Rs. 5,624 crore, respectively. The capital-intensive IAF, however, once again scores over the other two wings of the armed forces getting the lion’s share at Rs. 30,699 crore ($6.82 billion) of capital outlay compared to the Army at Rs. 18,986 crore ($4.22 billion) and the Navy at Rs. 13,008 crore ($2.9 billion), respectively.

Of the total capital outlay amounting to Rs. 69,199 crore, however, only Rs. 55,000 crore ($12.2 billion) have been earmarked for new acquisitions, i.e. for all the wings of the defence forces. If it were to be compared with the fund allocations for capital expenditure for the preceding three years—Rs. 48,007 crore for 2008-09; Rs. 54,824 for 2009-10 and Rs. 60,000 crore for 2010-11, it would become clear that this year’s allocation has also followed the routine yearly increment of close to 10 per cent which does nothing except to cater, if at all, to the annual inflationary pressures—global and domestic. It may also be noteworthy that barring the yet to be proved claims of the Ministry of Defence of having exhausted the 2010-11 capital allotments to the last rupee, in all previous years, the allocations have not only been revised—overall downwards—but the Ministry have had to also surrender considerable portions of funds under the capital expenditure, which could not be spent during the concerned financial years.