Reorganisation of Defence Outlay for 2016–17: A Tepid Affair

Beginning 2016–17, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will present four detailed demands for grant (DDGs)1 instead of eight that it had been presenting to the Lok Sabha2 in the past. It is not that its area of responsibility has shrunk. The reason why the number of demands has come down is that the budgetary outlays earlier spread over eight demands have now been compressed into four.

The reorganisation of demands is not limited to MoD. The total number of demands presented by the Finance Minister as a part of the union budget has been brought down from 109 to 96 in the budget for 2016–17 by merging some existing demands with other demands. Of the 12 demands which have been thus reorganised, six demands pertain to MoD. In the process, nomenclature of some of the demands has also been changed.