Military budget of India

The military budget or defence budget of India is the portion of the overall budget of Union budget of India that is allocated for the funding of the Indian Armed Forces. The military budget finances employee salaries and training costs, maintenance of equipment and facilities, support of new or ongoing operations, and development and procurement of new technologies, weapons, equipment, and vehicles.

The Indian Army accounts for more than half of the total defence budget of India, with most of the expenditure going to the maintenance of cantonments, salaries and pensions, rather than critical arms and ammunition.

Overview
India's defence budget includes allocation for the three defence services: the army, navy and air force. It also includes allocation for the ordnance factories, research and development, and capital outlay. Additionally there are civil defence expenditures such as pensions. Unofficial expenditure includes expenses for four of the six Central Armed Police Forces responsible for border security. The space program and atomic energy are funded separately.

2017–2018
The Minister of Finance allocated inr 3590000000000 of the 2017 Union budget of India for the development of the armed forces, marking a raise of around 7% from the previous fiscal year.

2018–2019
In presenting the defence budget of 2018–2019, the Finance Minister allocated inr 4043650000000 for the Ministry of Defence (MOD). This translates into an increase of 5.66% over the 2017–2018 defence budget.

2019–2020
As 2019 was an election year the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government presented an interim budget in place of a regular budget as per the general practice. In the interim budget an allocation of inr 4310110000000 was made. On its re-election the NDA government kept the military budget unchanged. However the actual expenditure exceeded the estimated amount and final defence spending for 2019–2020 stood at inr 4488200000000, marking an increase of around 10% over the previous budget.

2020–2021
The allocation for defence during the fiscal year 2020–2021 stood at inr 4713780000000. This amounted to an increase of nearly 9%.

2021–2022
The allocation for defence during the fiscal year 2021–2022 was inr 4781960000000, an increase of 1% over the previous year.

2022–2023
The allocation for defence during the fiscal year 2022–2023 stood at inr 5251660000000, an increase of nearly 10% over the previous year. making it the fourth highest in the world after the US, China, and Russia.

2023–2024
The defence expenditure for fiscal year 2023–2024 stood at inr 5935380000000.

2024–2025
The defence budget of India was increased to inr 6215410000000 in the 2024-2025 union budget from inr 5935380000000 during last year. This year’s defence budget accounts for 1.89% of the country’s projected gross domestic product (GDP) for 2024-25.

Spending as a percentage of GDP
The above statistics were collected by the World Bank up to 2018.

Capital acquisition
The above data was published by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.