NEWS
Adhering to its commitment in the pre-election interim budget, the UPA government at the Centre allocated Rs 1,41,703 crore (approximately $28 billion) for defence from India’s Budget 2009-10 presented by the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, on July 6. The defence budget records an increase of 34 per cent over 2008-09 allocations and includes Rs 54,824 crore ($11 billion) for capital expenditure as against Rs 41,000 crore in the revised estimates for 2008-09. The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) share of the capital outlay has been pegged at Rs 19,959.22 crore. The question is will it suffice?

VIEWS
On the face of it, while the defence budget may have been increased by a hefty 34.19 per cent over the previous year’s revised figures, the hike in allocation works out to 23.65 per cent. The increase can be largely attributed to the sharp rise in revenue expenditure which, in turn, is mainly to cater to the substantial increase in pay and allowances flowing from the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission. In percentage figures, the revenue expenditure’s share in the defence budget has risen to 61.31 compare to 54.54 in the previous year, which reflects poorly on capital allocations required for the modernisation of the armed forces. While the manpower intensive Indian Army gets the lion’s share in the revenue budget, it is the equipment intensive IAF which has bagged the biggest share for capital acquisitions. But is it enough? Evidently, in dollar terms, the IAF will have less than $3.6 billion (Rs 18,811.64 crore) to pay for its capital acquisition schemes this year—far short of what will be required to keep its modernisation/upgrade programmes on track.

Major ongoing schemes include the Hawk Advance Jet Trainer, AWACS with Israeli Phalcon systems, Su-30MKI, Aerostat, Spyder and the indigenous Akash Surface-to-Air Missile systems, different types of ground-based air defence and air traffic control radars, and helicopter acquisition programmes, such as the indigenous Dhruv ALH and Mi-17. In addition, there are a large number of upgrade programmes— such as the MiG-29, An-32 and Mirage-2000—for which contracts have either already been signed or are in the pipeline. The IAF would also have to park money with HAL for its Light Combat Aircraft limited production initial order. More than anything else it needs to start catering for the upcoming $10-15 billion (Rs 48,280-72,420 crore) 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft programme.

Estimations suggest the IAF would consistently need at least $5-6 billion (Rs 24,140-28,968 crore) annually for the next 10 years to build its operational and infrastructural capabilities to the minimum desired standards. Simply put, the IAF should get a minimum of Rs 25,000 crore or more as capital outlay per annum to stay on track with its capability enhancement programmes.