Indian Navy to ask Centre for 18 percent of Defence Budget

The Indian Navy on Tuesday said it will request the government for a higher budget and is aiming at increasing its share of the defence budget to 18%, in light of major acquisitions, including advanced submarines and fighter aircraft.

Navy Vice Chief Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar said for the current financial year, the Navy’s share of the defence budget is 13.66%. He said the Navy will ask the government for additional funds during the revised estimates later this year.

“We will certainly seek more money. One of the challenges is meeting our aspirations. Our endeavour is to ask for a higher share of the capital budget within the defence services budget, which has also dropped in the last seven years. The navy’s share was about 18% of the defence budget in 2012-13,” said Kumar.

The current state of navy’s budget comes in the backdrop of three major acquisitions.

On September 28,defence minister Rajnath Singh will be in Mumbai to commission the second Scorpene-class submarine, ‘Khanderi’, of the Project 75 into the navy, besides launching ‘Nilgiri’, the first frigate of the Project 17A class and inaugurating an aircraft carrier dry dock, which can accommodate navy’s sole carrier, INS Vikramaditya, for repair and servicing. The cost of the three projects is about Rs 74,320 crore.

Officials said the six P75 submarines cost about Rs 25,000 crore while the Project 17A comprising seven ships are worth about Rs 48,000 crore and the dry dock located at the naval dockyard in Mumbai is Rs 1,320 crore.

Source Link : http://www.defencenews.in/article/Indian-Navy-to-ask-Centre-for-18-percent-of-Defence-Budget-647014