Defence budget raised by 12 percent

India's new government boosted defence spending by 12 percent in 2014-15 over the previous year, in a budget presented on Thursday and further opened the domestic weapons industry to foreign investment to help rebuild the military. The raise in defence budget is similar to that of Pakistan which has increased its defence spending by 11.64 percent as compared to previous year.
Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley set the military budget at 2.29 trillion Indian rupees ($38.35 billion) for 2014-15 as compared to 2.04 trillion rupees in 2013-14. Pakistan's defence budget is the lowest in the region despite its location in the 'red zone' in terms of growing threats to its security. Defence budget has been jacked up to Rs 700. 2 billion for the current fiscal year compared with Rs 627.2 billion allocated in the previous fiscal year, showing an increase of Rs 73 billion. The military, however, had sought an increase of Rs 173 billion in defence spending for 2014-15.
According to Pakistani Ministry of Defence estimates, Pakistan's defence allocation (US $5.7 billion approximately) is the lowest as compared to rising defence budget of India US $37.256 billion, China $115 billion, and Turkey $19.1 billion.
Jaitley's Bharatiya Janata Party has long called for a militarily-strong India to counter perceived threats from both China and Pakistan and said it would speed up the pace of arms purchases for the military, the world's third largest. Even at the elevated spending, India's military budget is still less than a third of China's $145 billion expenditure in 2013-14 estimated by the Pentagon in its report to the US Congress this month.
Pakistani defence expert said the determination by the government of the resources to be allocated to the armed forces is based not only on the financial condition of that country, but would also take into account its geographic position, the internal and external threats it faces, and the other objectives that a state might intend to achieve.
A recent report, released by Senate Standing Committee on Defence states that Pakistan has to live with a hostile neighbour with whom it has fought five wars and which is currently the largest military spender in the region. India's defence budget is about $40 billion a year and it is a leading global importer of weapons. India last year accounted for 14 percent of the world arms imports. According to defence ministry's estimates, Pakistan's military spending inevitably have to be on the higher side. But, still these are being managed at about 2.69 percent of GDP and 17.01 percent of total outlay of the national budget.