Military Modernisation: ‘Expenditure in Short Term to Save in Future’

The defence budget forms a very important part of the Union Budget for the year 2020-21. Nearly 16% of the government’s total expenditure has been allocated to defence which includes defence pension and it comes to around 2.1% of the GDP of India. In the defence sector, the maximum increase has been on account of the defence pension which has increased by nearly 14% and the rest of the allocations have not been increased by more than 3% on average. Defence analyst D Raghunandan points out that Indian military system needs modernisation which involves expenditure in the short term, to be able to save in the long term.