Islamabad: Pakistan government has proposed to allocate nearly Rs1.4 trillion (about $8.9 billion) for the defence sector in its budget for fiscal 2021-22, an increase of almost 6.3% over the estimated allocations for the last financial year.
An interesting aspect of this year’s defence budget is that all armed services have got an equal raise of about 6.2%. The army as always has the biggest share of the pie at Rs 651.5 billion (47.55% of the defence budget), the air force will be given Rs 291.2 billion (21.3%), the navy will get Rs 148.7 billion (10.9%), and interservices organisations are being allocated Rs 278.5 billion (20.3%).
The proposed defence allocations, announced by Pakistan finance minister Shaukat Tareen, constitute 16% of the total federal budget outlay, which is almost Rs 8.5 trillion. Moreover, the allocation is 2.5% of the GDP, indicating its magnitude vis-a-vis other allocations of public importance. The allocation, however, does not give the full picture. For instance, the Rs 360 billion to be paid to retired military officers would come from the civilian government’s current expenditure instead of the defence budget. Military acquisitions are also believed to be funded separately. Funds for the nuclear weapons programme, which are placed under a secret head, are also not included.
