February 26, 2016
Saugata Roy speaks asks a question on modernisation of Armed Forces
The war in the future will be a technological war and it is here that India is falling far behind. There are three reasons for that. Our DRDO has failed to deliver. We know how much time was taken to develop our light combat aircraft and our main battle tank. The Make In India initiative has not taken off though we were supposed to have six nuclear submarines.
The main problem is that in spite of tall talk the percentage of defence expenditure in India is low. It is four per cent of the budget in US, 3.5 per cent in China, three per cent in Pakistan and 1.74 per cent in India.
Will the Hon’ble Minister please tell what step he is taking to overcome these three major hurdles in the modernisation of Armed Forces, that is, hastening of the DRDO process, hastening of the Make In India process and improving budgetary support to defence.
