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| Unavoidable is Armed Forces' modernisation | | | BL KAK
NEW DELHI, MARCH 1
UPA government's announcement in Parliament on Wednesday vis-a-vis a hike in the defence budget for 2007-08 has, on expected lines, received due coverage in the world press, too. But the increase in the defence spending is unlikely to speed up the modernisation of one of the world's largest militaries.
It is already an open secret that New Delhi, the developing world's biggest buyer of arms, has a shopping list of fighter jets, helicopters, cargo planes, missiles, radars, naval patrol aircraft and artillery for its 1.3 million-strong force. However, the latest increase in funding was roughly in line with inflation and defence analysts said that spending had fallen as a percentage of GDP due to fiscal pressures and larger outlays for health, education and the flagging farm sector.
This, defence analysts said, would ensure modernisation remained incremental at a time India's security needs were multiplying and neighbours, China and Pakistan, were paying more attention to their militaries. C Uday Bhaskar of New Delhi's Institue for Defence Studies and Analyses, is quoted as saying: "This increase is neither here nor there. The fact that funds allotted for modernisation last year were not fully utilised is also not very encouraging".
"Arms purchase procedures are not as nimble and as quick as they ought to be", he said, adding that this had resulted in part of each of the past three years' budgets remaining unspent. "There is a need to address this lacuna now more so than ever."
India, which has the world's fourth largest military, embarked on an ambitious plan to modernise its largely Soviet-era arms in the late 1990s as it began to assert its political and military power in South Asia. Over the past three years, it has bought fighter and trainer jets, an aircraft carrier, submarines, missiles, radars and electronic warfare systems, making it the developing world's biggest arms buyer in 2004 and 2005.
However, much more needs to be acquired to replace ageing equipment, with no room for complacency despite peace on its frontiers with China and Pakistan, with whom it has fought wars, defence analysts said. Besides, a career in the military needs to be made more lucrative to attract high-quality recruits to handle modern weapons at a time India's booming economy was driving youngsters towards better-paying jobs, they argued. |
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