Islamabad Telegraph Report
Islamabad: Tension between security forces of Pakistan and India , two arch-rival nuclear armed South Asian neighbors, continues across Line of Control in Kashmir region. This has, perhaps, compelled Islamabad to raise its defence budget to cope with rapidly changing scenarios in South Asia.
Fact is that Pakistan army is equally engaged in national affairs apart from safe-guarding country’s borders, which includes responding to disasters, maintenance of law and order and now, leading Pakistan’s fight against Pandemic of Covid-19. It all makes Pakistan armed forces, one of unique force in its category around the globe.
As expected, the federal government on Friday proposed an 11.9 per cent increase in the defence budget despite the earlier announcement that military spending would remain unchanged in view of the grave economic situation compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The budget document revealed the defence outlay for 2020-21 has been fixed as Rs1,289 billion as compared to Rs1,152 billion earmarked for the ongoing fiscal year. The increase, however, is 5% if compared with the revised spending of Rs1,227 billion in 2019-20.
Part of the excess defence spending in the ongoing fiscal year has been attributed to the continued tensions between Pakistan and India. Relations between the two countries have been spiralling downwards ever since the Pulwama attack in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir in February 2019.
Earlier this year, India raised its defence spending by around 6%. However, the size of Indian defence budget is six times bigger than the total outlay of Pakistan’s defence. In fact, India’s defence budget is equal to Pakistan’s total budget outlay.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) releaved in its annual report that said India had the world’s third-biggest military budget only behind the United States and China.
The report highlighted that India’s military spending grew by 259 per cent over a 30-year period stretching from 1990 to 2019 and by 37 per cent over the 2010-19 decade.
The military sources said that Pakistan spends $9,000 per solider, India $18,000, Turkey $37,000, China $70,000, Saudi Arabia $360,000 while the United States allocates $425,000 per solider annually. The difference, however, between Pakistan and other countries is that the size of their economies is far bigger than Pakistan.