India’s annual budget hikes defense spending by 10 percent to INR 2.74 trillion

New Delhi, February 1 (Reuters): Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday announced a more than 10 per cent increase in the country’s defense budget for upcoming fiscal year.

It has been increased to 2.74 trillion Indian rupees (INR) ─ excluding pensions ─  compared to previous fiscal year’s (2016-17) budget of INR 2.49 tr The allocation is about 12.78pc of total government expenditure, which is INR 21.47 tr.

This is the second consecutive increase of over 10 pc in the defense budget .Analysts said the increase would be necessary to deal with inflation and the ongoing modernization drive in military hardware.

However, without the pension component, the increase in the budget amounts to approximately 5.8 percent over the previous fiscal year.

The portion of the budget allocated to capital acquisition for the upcoming fiscal year is just over INR 0.86tr as compared to previous year’s amount of INR 0.78tr. Approximately half the funds were returned, according to the Economic Times, signifying some difficulty in spending the allocated funds.

Addressing parliament, Jaitley called his fourth budget one for the poor.

Yet, while vowing prudent fiscal management, he also raised his 2017-18 federal deficit target to 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to cover his spending promises.

India will also ramp up spending on rural areas, infrastructure and fighting poverty, Jaitley said as he unveiled the annual budget, adding the impact on growth from the government’s cash crackdown would wear off soon.

Jaitley called India “an engine of global growth” but highlighted risks to its outlook from likely United States interest rate hikes, rising oil prices and signs that globalization is in retreat.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise decision last November to scrap high-value banknotes worth 86pc of India’s cash in circulation has hit consumer demand, disrupted supply chains and hurt capital investments.

The worst of the cash crunch is now over, however, and Jaitley said he expected it would not spill over into the fiscal year starting on April 1.

A private manufacturing survey on Wednesday showed business was slowly returning to normal.

Still, the finance ministry forecasts that growth could dip to as low as 6.5 percentc in the current fiscal year to March, before picking up slightly in the coming fiscal year to between 6.75 and 7.5 percent.

That is below the target rate of 8 percent or more that Modi needs to create enough jobs for the 1 million young Indians who enter the workforce in India each month. Half of the population in the nation of 1.3 billion is below the age of 25.

While opinions vary on how long the disruptions caused by Modi’s crackdown on untaxed and illicit wealth will last, there is near unanimity among economists that Asia’s third-largest economy needs a helping hand.

Jaitley said the government would hike capital investment by 25.4 percent. He also announced a 24 percent hike in rural and farm spending as part of Modi’s commitment to double farm incomes over five years.

But there was no extra room in the budget to increase capital support for India’s troubled state banks. Jaitley said he would pump in 100 billion Indian rupees, in line with earlier plans.

In a surprise announcement, Jaitley said India would abolish the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, a government body, in a move that seeks to cut a layer of bureaucracy and make India an easier place to do business.

“Abolishing the FIPB will further boost Foreign Direct Investment,” said Pravin Kumar Agrawal, a tax partner at Deloitte Haskins & Sells.

Modi has vowed to improve the ease of doing business in India, which is ranked a lowly 130 th in the World Bank’s global rankings.

Jaitley’s fiscal largesse will not only boost consumer spending, but may also shore up the fortunes of Modi’s nationalist party in five regional elections for which voting begins on Saturday.

The electoral outcome, particularly in the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh that is home to one in every six Indians, would play a big part in determining whether Modi can win a second term in 2019.

Busting the deficit target, however, will worry ratings agencies at a time when oil prices ─ India’s most costly import ─ are on an upswing.

Standard & Poor’s has already warned that, at 68.5 percent, India’s public debt-to-GDP ratio is still too high.