DEATH BY BUDGET: Is This The Indian Army’s Angriest Report To Government?

indus

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Govt had to pressurise IAF to accept Tejas in 1A configuration. Even then they keep saying the real plane they want is Mk2. Similarly army should also start somewhere. They did not accept Arjun Mk1 and sent drdo with a list of 52 modifications, after full summer n winter trials. Army however accepted T90 MS without night fighting capability and only asked for Night vision when they had already inducted T90 in hundreds. The weight issue of Arjun also seems excuse to me for delaying induction. Arjun could be used in varied other situations where weight penalty is not an issue. But import lobby wont make it happen. Then the forces say they dont have enough money.
 

ezsasa

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The way i see it..

Unless Indian army allows itself to be used as a tool for economic gain for india, they will always be underfunded. they need to become more than a defensive force, in the long term they can't expect to heavily funded to blast some paki posts in a weekly basis or take out some illiterate jihadis in the valley.

American and British forces are a good example for "tool for economic gain", after they go in to war with a certain other country their own country gets economic gain in terms of oil or infrastructure etc. which in turn makes funding of their armies as an investment.
 

Armand2REP

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Still some fanboys dreaming about 100s of rafales:frusty:
It explains why IAF isn't signing more deals, they don't have the budget but to do one deal at a time. The Rafale procurement will be spread out over many years and with both IAF and IN procurement budgets going into the purchase it will go twice as fast to get over 100. It all makes sense now. Modi must have planned this way back on the Paris visit.
 

ezsasa

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Layman's stupid question.....

If I remember correctly, the amount of defense spending (in absolute rupee value) was higher than last year by 7.8%

http://www.firstpost.com/business/b...rm-hike-in-allocation-inadequate-4331055.html

I am missing something in the picture, but not sure of what it is.....!!??

Gurus, please explain the missing pieces of the puzzle.
What IA is saying is that inspite the increase in overall budget, if you subtract personnel wage costs + inflation + operational costs + social activies(public education, health, roads , sports etc) there is not much money left for capital acquisitions and weapon upgrades.
 

mayfair

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Aren't pensions and salaried budgeted separately?
 

abingdonboy

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Yeah yeah, okay so the GoI hasn't increased the budget (in real terms) for 3-4 years now and as a proportion of GDP it is smaller than ever (1.56%) BUT what is the IA doing about it? They can crib all they like but they swallow gargantuan ammounts of the Indian defence budget (>52%) but manage to have the SMALLEST CAPEX of any of the 3 services? We all know why- their ridicuously bloated manpower which leads to a MASSIVE OPEX.

Cut the IA manpower by 20-30% and you'll see a massive increase in its actual lethality (well over 300-400%) if you invest the freed up funds in equipment.

Instead, what is the IA doing? expanding their ranks by 90,000, it beggers belief. Even the PLA woke up, they have taken the call to cut by 30% and coupled with thei signifcantly increased defence budget are going to be a transformed force within the next 5 years whilst the IA will remain equipped to fight with WW1-era equipment (or worse).

There is no infinite supply of money and there is a strong case to be made that there are more useful areas to invest in than the military for a developing country, in other nations with strained budgets (that is to say all of them) the military appreciates the situation and tries to prioritise and adjust to the situation, in India the armed forces carry on as normal and then cry that they aren't being treated fairly by their civilian masters. >$20BN/year the IA gets and what do they have to show for it? This is more than some ENTIRE militaries and yet they are still running around looking like they are going to the trenchs of France.
 

IndiaRising

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What reforms? Govt has done little to reform the MOD
reject every attempt at indigenization while spreading their legs for foreign maal.

how do you reform bureaucracy? they are there for life. no one can reform them unless it means to completely do away with them or bring new people to work instead of them. they will always find some loophole to get what they want. do you think indians will accept a complete purge of MoD?
 

indus

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What reforms? Govt has done little to reform the MOD
Due to the high stakes involved import lobby is fully penetrated both armed forces and MoD. Drdo has developed some excellent products but take lot of time to bring them into serial production. Why is that the sucess we achieved in missiles and satelites could not be replicated in armed forces equipments like tanks, aircrafts, guns etc.
 

Armand2REP

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Why is that the sucess we achieved in missiles and satelites could not be replicated in armed forces equipments like tanks, aircrafts, guns etc.
Probably because once you launch a missile or a rocket you are done with it. Tanks, aircraft and guns are used thousands of times for decades. It has to be made to last and meet changing threats.
 

indus

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Probably because once you launch a missile or a rocket you are done with it. Tanks, aircraft and guns are used thousands of times for decades. It has to be made to last and meet changing threats.
Come on. This is the worst logic I ever heard. Satelite is a more complex object and is put in orbit thousands of Kms above earth with accurate precision. A few inches of digression can change the orbit altogether. Do you want me to believe Mars mission was less complex thing than making a tank. The actual reason is that we lived in total tech denial in case of satelites and missiles, but foreign options are available in case of tanks, aircrafts etc. Therefore forces are not tied to buy indegenious products only.
 

Armand2REP

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Come on. This is the worst logic I ever heard. Satelite is a more complex object and is put in orbit thousands of Kms above earth with accurate precision. A few inches of digression can change the orbit altogether. Do you want me to believe Mars mission was less complex thing than making a tank. The actual reason is that we lived in total tech denial in case of satelites and missiles, but foreign options are available in case of tanks, aircrafts etc. Therefore forces are not tied to buy indegenious products only.
Once you launch a satellite you are one and done There are no changes to be made. DRDO projects get held back by the forces constantly setting up new requirements. It has nothing to do with complexity. It has to do with the armed forces never being satisfied.
 

rkhanna

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We should increase our defense budget to 70 billion dollars.
Yea and how will the government then manage a widening Fisc?

The DeMon and Gst Gambles didnt pay off. Its an election year - the govt is rolling out 5lakh a family insurance to 5cr families, Farmers insurance, etc etc etc. How will they fund that? Dont forget commodity prices are rising which further adds burden on the govt.

Boss - in an election in guns vs butter - butter will ALWAYS win.
 

Bahamut

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Army needs to reduce its size and become more efficient at the same time getting more local weapons
 

rkhanna

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Army needs to reduce its size and become more efficient at the same time getting more local weapons
I have often argued against this argument.

Reduce to what? The Army today carries out everything from border management, to COIN, to Natural Disaster Relief ops to building bridges in Mumbai. outside of batmen etc where are non essential personal who are sitting around doing nothing? Most of our battalions in Orbat are understaffed. ALL our borders are volatile

Also - you reduce these posts and you suddenly have massive unemployment. the Indian economy is simply not ready to absorb so many people (even if they have tangible real world skills). That is ALSO a burden on the economy which if MoD doesnt pay for the HM will pay for.
 

S.Balaji

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Come on. This is the worst logic I ever heard. Satelite is a more complex object and is put in orbit thousands of Kms above earth with accurate precision. A few inches of digression can change the orbit altogether. Do you want me to believe Mars mission was less complex thing than making a tank. The actual reason is that we lived in total tech denial in case of satelites and missiles, but foreign options are available in case of tanks, aircrafts etc. Therefore forces are not tied to buy indegenious products only.
A DRDO official put it succinctly... Why does a country which possess tech to create SSBNs,ICBMs, BMD, Mangalyaan, SLV have to import measly 9mm pistol, Rifles, Personnel carriers etc...

Reason .... SSBNs,ICBMs, BMDs, SLV tech and other dual technology are not on market...meaning no money to be made on the sly by middlemen, no money to grease the palms of bureaucrats to deploy red tapes....hence no sabotage or subversion required through their henchmen in MSM, government and MOD

Tanks, aircraft, art, Troop carriers etc are on market and hence their indigenous counterparts are subject to sabotage (Arjun), derision (Tejas), bad mouthing (Insas 1b1) through paid article by MSM and red tap-ism by MOD... A plan is hatched and as if on cue from a hidden hand an entire machinery is activated with the objective of herding the country towards buying foreign maal...... MSM is deployed to undermine indigenous products, raise hue and cry on shortage of arms & ammo, exhorting the preeminence of foreign maal over indigenous product ... we don't see the hidden puppeteers but can see the manifestation of their actions on the ground.....

We in recent past witnessed the never ending circus of the purported single engine fighter tender that was going around for years..... But you have to give it to the effort of well oiled machinery salivating at the money to be lapped up..... man o man these puppeteers are very very good in shaping the narrative by positioning well written articles in MSM and twitter feeds quoting these informed sources....they are so good in shaping the narrative that even our informed members were in a tizzy for couple of years filling this forum with their well intentioned anguish despite assertions of few members who correctly pointed out to the absence of EOI or RFI or RFP from MOD

Lot of good indigenous products has been junked for substandard foreign maal and remember india is not alone, remember Israeli Lavi, the recent Jap X2 nipped in the bud to ensure no counterpart in the western world for F35.. wont be surprised for Korean/Indonesia KF-X to go the same way
 
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