The Finance Ministry has declined a recommendation from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence to have a fixed allocation of 3% of GDP for the Defence Ministry, a report of the Committee has stated.
“The recommendation of the Standing Committee for keeping a definite percent of GDP was referred to MoF for their consideration, the same was not approved by MoF,” the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its reply to the Committee.
The Committee has on several occasions expressed favour for having a benchmark percentage of GDP earmarked for deciding on the allocation to the defence sector to continue modernisation.
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Definite cost
The MoF in its reply to the MoD said: “Since government resources come with definite cost, resource allocation is made among various competing priorities.
Thus, defence expenditure as definite percentage of total government expenditure/GDP cannot be ensured considering the fact the resource allocations are made on need basis.”
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Finance Ministry further added that rationalisation of the expenditure is the prime objective of the government while finalising the revised estimates during mid-year review.
The Vice Chief of Army Lt. Gen Sarath Chand has deposed before the Committee that this year’s budgetary allocation has dashed their hopes, and the capital allocation does not even cater for the committee liabilities for the year.