Find The Money First

The Standing Committee on Defence (SCoD) routinely laments, and admonishes the MoD officials for inadequacy of the defence budget. But it has not been able to suggest anything better than that the defence budget should be increased to 3 per cent of the GDP which begs the question where the money is going to come from. On its part, the MoD seems to think that the problem can be solved by delegating more financial powers to the Services, tweaking the procurement procedures, and enforcing indigenisation of defence production by banning import of defence items. These are not practical solutions, as these skirt the basic question: Where is the money?