Emphasizing upon the concerns the navy is facing, the service is expected to seek to almost double the allocation of money under its Capital expenditure subhead.
A Navy officer said, “We have been given about Rs 22,000 crore but we are going to seek a revision as the budget is quite lesser than what the service needs for its critical projects.” Navy is looking for a raise of about Rs 20,000 crore.
The Indian Navy is seeking the increase for its existing committed liabilities and future modernisation plans. Navy envisages having 200 warships and 500 aircraft, including the helicopters.
Total defence budget allocated for 2019-20 is 305296 crore of which the total Capital Expenditure allocation is 103394 to be shared between the Army, Air Force and Navy.
On Tuesday a similar concern of budget scarcity pinching the naval modernization was pointed by the Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar while he was briefing the media about three important ceremonies on 28 September which will be attended by the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Vice Admiral Kumar said, “The Navy will certainly seek more money. What we need is more capital allocation of the budget… the Navy’s share was 18 per cent of the defence budget in 2012-13, which came down to 13.6 per cent. We would like it to go back to 18-20 per cent.” A proposal has been sent to the MoD he added.
On 28th of this month, the Defence Minister will visit Mumbai for a day with the Indian Navy. There are 03 landmark events which are planned for the day; one of them is the Commissioning of the 2nd of P-75 submarines to be named ‘Khanderi’.
The second event is the launch of first of the P-17A ships which is being called ‘Nilgiri’ as a follow on to the first-ever frigate which was built by MDL, way back in early 70’s and P17A is the follow-on of Shivalik class.
And, the third event is the Commissioning of Country’s largest Aircraft Carrier Drydock which is capable of even dry docking Vikramaditya.
“Now, with these 03 events, you will find that the Indian Navy’s combat potential, its ability to enhance its reach and sustenance,” said Vice Chief.