India announces budget with Rs7.29tr allocation for military

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government unveiled its budget proposals for 2019/2020 on Friday, seeking to reverse weakening growth and investment that threaten to take the shine off a recent landslide election victory.

Recently appointed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting the annual budget statement to parliament in the Indian capital, New Delhi, said the government planned structural reforms to kick-start foreign and domestic investment.

An allocation of Rs3.18 lakh crore (approx PKR7.29 trillion) was made in the Union Budget to the defence sector for 2019-20 as against last year's Rs2.98 lakh crore. Out of the total allocation, Rs108,248 crore has been set aside for capital outlay to purchase new weapons, platforms and military hardware.

The government's annual economic report published on Thursday said it will try to achieve that through higher investments, savings and exports in the way China's growth was propelled.

Ms Sitharaman said that India could grow to a $5 trillion (£4 trillion) economy in the next five years (from $2.7 trillion) and outlined her priorities for spending. But she did not announce exactly how all funds would be allocated.

"We need to invest heavily in infrastructure, digital economy, job creation," Sitharaman said, adding India is set to become a $3 trillion economy in the current fiscal year. The minister claimed that India would be the third largest economy of the world in the next five years.

But economists say scaling up Asia's third-largest economy in rapid fashion will need bold reforms including freeing up land and labour markets, which Modi shied away from in his first term for fear of political backlash.

Capital Economics said in a note on Friday that reaching that target "is dependent in large part on achieving real GDP (gross domestic product) growth of eight percent a year, which we think is unlikely.

"Land and labour reforms are difficult in a democracy like India and it seems unlikely Modi will risk drawing the ire of his Bharatiya Janata Party voters that re-elected him with a huge mandate. India's economy is also running into global headwinds with growth weighed down by trade wars and protectionism."

Asia's third-largest economy grew at a much slower-than-expected 5.8 percent in the last quarter, the weakest growth rate in five years and far below the pace needed to generate jobs for the millions of young Indians entering the labour market each month.

And the unemployment rate rose to a multi-year-high of 6.1 percent in the 2017/18 fiscal year. New investment proposals in 2018/19 fell to 9.5 trillion rupees ($138.5bn), the lowest investment proposals recorded in 14 years, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a Mumbai based think-tank.