Aerospace Diary

Posted by- Neelam Mathews Feb 28, 2013 As part of the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2013-14, which was presented in the Parliament of India earlier in the day today, the budgetary allocation towards capital expenditure, which caters mostly towards fresh procurement programs of military hardware and platforms, has been kept at US$16.06 billion. The capital allocation has increased by 9 percentage points as compared to original planned capital expenditure of US$14.74 billion for the last fiscal year 2012-13. Against all expectations the defense budget was increased (though smaller) as compared to the previous year. Overall, the budgetary allocation for India's defense forces has been raised to US$ 37.72 billion as compared to last fiscal year figure of US$35.82 billion, an increase of 5.31 percentage points. % increase from 2012-13 (Budget): 9.00% % increase from 2012-13 (Revised): 24.67%          ...

Neelam Mathews Feb 28, 2013 At Aero India when AerospaceDiary asked the first question at the Minister of Defense press conference on the forthcoming budget , we were told the budget would be slashed.. India's  Defense now gets Rs  203,672 crores' as against last year's Rs 1.95 crores, an increase of approx 4.5% .  Of the total defense outlay for 2013-14,Rs 86,741 crore will be for capital expenditure.  In any case the rupee depreciation last year actually shrank the budget! So how much of this is an increase, needs to be seen. Finance Minister added: "The minister of defense has  been understanding and I have  assured him constraints will not come into the way (in case money is urgently needed).  " Despite our constraints we must find funds for science and technology, space and nuclear science," which have been given a substantial Rs   6780crore. Of this Rs  5600 cr. is for the ministry of space.