Indian Defence R & D Budget Shows Declining Trend

India’s defence research and development budget has remained static, if not declining in the last two years. In 2014-15, the R&D spend of the ministry of defence (MoD) has been Rs 15,282.crores and in 2015-16 the budget estimate, the figure that has been computed is Rs 14,358.49 crores.

The ’14-’15 figure is, however, a significant step up on ’13-’14 spending that was of the order of Rs 10,610.17 crores, while the year previous – ’12-’13 - was Rs 10,635.56 crores.

In per centage terms, the R&D expenditure, compared to the total capital budget of the MoD has been 16.15 per cent and 15.18 per cent for years ’14-’15 and ’15 -’16.

Similarly, in ’12-’13 the corresponding per centage was 13.36 per cent, while in ’13-’14 it was 12.23 per cent.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had stated in Parliament Thursday, “Allocation of funds in the future would depend on various factors including the overall state of the economy, requirement of other Services and agencies and availability of resources.”