National Security Doctrine for Global Reach continues....

Therefore, if the present Indian Government is serious about a “credible nuclear deterrent”, then a considerably enhanced allocation for defence services is called for. At present, India’s share in the world’s defence expenditure is a mere 1.11%, when that of China is 4.16%. Of the 36 Asian countries for which we have data, India’s ranking by ratio of defence expenditure to GDP, (this ratio is a mere 2.3%) is 27th, in position, while China is 13th, Pakistan is 11th. Judging by per capita expenditure on defence, India’s rank is 35th at $ 8.73—beaten to the bottom of the list by Bangladesh! As far as the number of armed forces personnel per 1000 of population is concerned, India is at the bottom of the list (i.e., 36th) at 1.2 per 1000, while China is 3rd at 2.42 per 1000 and Pakistan is second at 6.01 per 1000.

In fact, India’s defence expenditure at constant 1980 prices, has remained stagnant since 1980 and has actually fallen since 1995. The share of defence production in that expenditure has declined from 14.8% in 1983-84 to 1.2% this year! What is significant about India’s defence expenditure is that manpower costs have been rising at an annual rate of 10 per cent per year when hardware procurement budget has crawled at a mere 2 per cent per year. And over time the indigenous component of that hardware has declined to just 30 per cent. The Standing Committee of Parliament alarmed by that, had in 1996 prescribed a target for indigenous content at 70% by 2005. For this, it set the Defence R & D target expenditure at 10% of the defence outlay. But it is nowhere near that figure. In the fiscal Budget for 2005, Defence R & D is about half, at 4.9% of the defence expenditure.

The only conclusion that one can draw from all this analysis is that what the National Security Advisory Board is propounding on nuclear defence is just the contrary of what the country has budgeted for.

to be continued...

( This account is maintained by Har Anand Publication)