India to spend $40 billion on military boost as it increases defense budget by 11%

Asia-Pacific, News March 1, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

India increased the amount of money it plans to spend on its military next fiscal year by 11% to nearly 2.47 trillion rupees ($40 billion) as nuclear armed South Asian nation plans to invest in expanding and modernizing its military.

Jaitley made the announcement in his budget for the financial year 2015-2016 at the Indian parliament in the capital New Delhi.

The hike in defense budget will help in pursuing the Indian government’s ‘Make-in-India’ initiative, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

“Defense of every inch of our land is above everything else,” Jaitley said.

But the limited rise in the military budget – three-quarters of which is spent on maintaining the world’s third largest standing force – means only some new weapons will be ordered this year.

Jaitley’s Bharatiya Janata Party has long called for a militarily-strong India to counter potential threats from both China and Pakistan and said it would speed up the pace of arms purchases for the military, the world’s third largest.

Even at the elevated spending, India’s military budget is still less than a third of China’s $145 billion expenditure last year estimated by the Pentagon in its report to the U.S. Congress this month.

New Delhi worries that China is building roads and other infrastructure along the disputed land border as well as bolstering its naval presence in the Indian Ocean that it considers its zone of influence.