Focus: GS-III Internal Security
Why in news?
- The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence has expressed concern at the widening gap between projections and allocations in the defence budget impacting modernisation and has recommended a dedicated fund for committed liabilities and procurements.
- The shortfall in allocation has also effected setting up of three tri-service organisations and the operational readiness of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC).
Details
- Such situation is not conducive for preparation of country to modern-day warfare, where possession of capital intensive modern machines are pre-requisite for not only tilting the result of war in our favour but also having a credible deterrence.
- Both the Navy and the IAF have a situation where their committed liabilities are more than their share of the capital allocation in the Budget.
- To offset this, the Services have been forced to defer payment of committed liabilities of the Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSU) among other measures.
- The implications of shortfall in miscellaneous expenditure include inability to operationalisation of Defence Space Agency (DSA), Defence Cyber Agency (DCYA) and Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD). Other implications are lower operational readiness of Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) ships due to impact on annual refit plans, maintenance of SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) equipment and administration of training institutes and operational units.
