×
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Parliamentary panel recommended creation of non-lapsable fund for defence

Last Updated 11 August 2017, 09:58 IST
The Defence Ministry's proposal to create a non-lapsable fund for military purchase has found favour with a Parliamentary panel that asked the Finance Ministry to shed its inhibitions and make arrangements to operationalise such a fund for defence capital acquisitions.
 
When the idea was revived by the defence ministry under Manohar Parrikar in February 2017, the Finance Ministry headed by Arun Jaitley discarded the proposal arguing that such a roll-on fund would have limited use as the defence ministry would not be automatically spend from the fund and have to seek the Parliament's approval before spending.
 
With Jaitley heading both defence and finance ministries, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence has now asked the minister to review the decision.
 
“Creation of a non-lapsable defence capital fund account is an imperative need for enhancement and heightened operational preparedness of our defence forces. Even if certain financial rules and regulations have to be amended for creation of the non-lapsable fund, it can and should be done in the interest of the nation,” the committee, headed by BJP leader and former Army officer B C Khandurai said in its report.
 
“Defence procurement and acquisition is a complicated process involving long gestation periods. The intention of the Committee in recommending a non-lapsable fund for defence modernization is to ensure that the money allocated for a particular item is spent on the specified item only, not necessarily in the same Financial year,” the panel said in its report tabled on Thursday.
 
Setting up such a fund is under discussion since 2003 when the Parliamentary Standing Committee recommended it. The Finance Ministry initially agreed and in 2004-05, then Finance Minister Jaswant Singh announced creation a corpus of Rs 25,000 crore in his interim budget speech.
 
However, the money was never released in the fund by the Congress-led UPA government that came to the power and eventually the idea was dropped though the Parliamentary Standing Committee kept on recommending the fund. The lawmakers cited gradual shrinkage in the capital acquisition budget to justify the corpus
 
The panel asked the Finance Ministry to look into the model adopted in creating a similar non-lapsable fund for the North Eastern region and replicate the same while opening up a similar fund for capital acquisition for the defence sector.
ADVERTISEMENT
(Published 11 August 2017, 09:58 IST)

Follow us on

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT