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Most of India’s defence funds remain unspent

NEW DELHI: India may be adding whopping amounts to its defence allocations every year, but most of the funds remain unspent and are returned to the Finance Ministry.

To a question in the Lok Sabha, Defence Minister AK Antony said Rs 70.07 billion were returned during the last financial year. In the revised estimates, the Defence Ministry had proposed to reduce Rs 20.63 billion from the original allocations. Antony said the primary reason for the reduction was non-implementation of certain schemes and delays in the delivery schedules of contracted schemes. He said in order to expedite procurements, defence procurement procedures (DPP) had been revised to ensure and optimise even utilisation of allocations.

Antony said the salient features of the offset policy of the DPP include the introduction of offset credit banking to enable foreign vendors to create offset programmes in anticipation of future obligations. Private industry was now required to have an industrial licence only if stipulated under the licensing requirements for the defence industry. A list of defence products had been added to facilitate the foreign vendors in implementing their offset obligations. iftikhar gilani

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