New Delhi: The Defence Ministry has fully utilised the allocated budget, and there has been no under utilisation and during the last three financial years (2016-17 to 2018-19), 58 contracts worth about Rs 138727.16 crore have been signed with foreign vendors for capital procurements of defence equipment for Armed Forces, Rajya Sabha was informed.
Various policy initiatives were taken to promote indigenous production of state-of-the-art defence systems and to use indigenous technologies.
The house was told that there has been a surge in start-ups dealing with defence production and indigenisation of imported equipment in last three years. The government has taken several initiatives to remove entry barriers for private industry including start-ups in the defence domain.
Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has evolved a new industry friendly Transfer of Technology (ToT) policy for transfer of DRDO developed technologies to industries. DRDO has also promulgated new patent policy to facilitate Indian industries to get free access to use DRDO patents, Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik said.
Defence Ministry has taken several new and innovative measures to improve work culture, bring more transparency and accountability and also enhance result orientation including measures for promoting Probity, Public Accountability and Transparency in defence capital procurements.
In reply to another question, the minister told the House that there have been 138 cases of infiltration by terrorists along Line of Control and International Border during 2019. Due to concerted and synergised efforts of security forces, 157 terrorists were neutralised that year in Jammu & Kashmir.
He said various reforms and steps have been taken to enhance defence exports. These reforms have provided a big boost to defence exports in the recent times. The authorisation for defence exports in the country have grown seven fold in the last two years.
According to available figures, defence exports up to December 31, 2019, for 2019-20, it was Rs 5,883 crore while the exports were Rs 1521.91 crore in 2016-17, Rs 4682.36 crore in 2017-18, Rs 10,745.77 crore (2018-19).
On the number and percentage of women officers in the three defence services, the Minister said in the Indian Navy (except Medical, Dental and MNS branch) is 527 (5.12 per cent). The corresponding figure in respect of Indian Air Force is 1,601 (13.81 per cent) while for the Army it was 1,545 (40.23 per cent).
He said the Indian Army is committed to comply to the February 17 judgement of Supreme Court granting permanent commission to the women officers as per their qualification, professional experience, specialisation, if any and organisation requirement.
The Minister said during the three years from 2017 to 2019, 251 persons belonging to the armed forces and 118 civilians were killed in Jammu and Kashmir in counter terrorist operations.
Government sought to dispel the notion that the outlay for defence was coming down saying that it may appear that Defence Budget as a percentage of GDP was decreasing due to increasing trend in the growth. However, it is increasing in absolute terms, implying higher spending. In BE 2019-20, total Defence Budget (including Miscellaneous and Pensions) is Rs 4,31,010.79 Crore, which is 15.47 per cent of total Central Government Expenditure. In BE 2019-20, Capital Budget of Ministry of Defence is approximately 31.97 per cent of the total capital expenditure of the Central Government Expenditure.
The expenditure on operations and maintenance and Defence Infrastructure has been maintained optimally.
