Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 2

Weighed down by rising establishment costs as well as salaries and pensions, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has decided to seek formal comments of the Army, Air Force and the Navy on “right-sizing” the services and also explore cutting costs from within. Right-sizing has been suggested by the high-powered Lt Gen DB Shekatkar Committee and its report was submitted to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on December 21 last year.The cost of just salaries and pensions of the three services and civilian employees under them is Rs 1,93,670 crore, which is about 53.81 per cent of the entire spend of Rs 3,59,854 crore. This includes Rs 2,74,114 crore as budget and Rs 85,740 crore as pensions. The cost of running the establishment is further enhanced when some other components are added namely salaries of research scientists (Rs 3,126 crore), establishment costs of smaller wings within the MoD (Rs 8,040 crore) and salaries of ordnance factories (Rs 6,582 crore).The Budget includes a capital outlay of Rs 86,488, which works out to be 24 per cent of the overall spend. This money is meant for new equipment, weapons, aircraft, naval warships and Army vehicles.Amit Cowshish, who retired from defence finance wing, says “reduction in manpower is directly proportional to infusion of new technology”.The Shekatkar committee was appointed by the government to enhance the combat potential of the armed forces and re-balance defence expenditure. It has recommended a series of measures to trim, redeploy and integrate manpower under the MoD to have an effective military.The committee has laid down a path to reduce expenses by Rs 25,000 crore over the next five-years. It has suggested redeployment of manpower from the organisations under the MoD and said it should be across the board.The Seventh Pay Commission, which is yet to be implemented in totality in the forces, will subsume the hike of 5.8 per cent in defence budget announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday.