Navy facing shortage: On Friday, the central government notified Parliament of a shortage of 10,896 personnel, including 1,777 officers, in the Navy. In response to a query in the Lok Sabha during the current winter session, Minister of State (MoS) for Defence Ajay Bhatt stated in a written reply that, based on data from the ministry until October of this year, the force lacked 9,119 sailors in addition to 1,777 officers.
He stated that as of October 2023, there were 76,649 sailors and 11,979 officers in the sanctioned strength, without counting the medical and dental departments.The Navy, the minister stated in his reply, recruited 323 officers and 5,547 sailors in 2021, and 386 officers and 5,171 sailors in 2022.
In answer to an additional query, the minister said that the finance and defence ministries are developing a system that will allow the MoD to operationalize a non-lapsable defence modernization fund under a special dispensation.
In 2021, the government complied with the Finance Commission’s recommendation to establish it, thereby allocating funds specifically for capital expenditures such as the acquisition of fighter jets and battleships.
Navy facing shortage
In March of this year, the non-lapsable money issue was also brought up in the Lok Sabha, and Bhatt stated that the Ministry of Defence was taking the issue under consideration.
According to media sources, the irregular acquisition of defence hardware and the discrepancy between government funding allotments and defence establishment expenditure projections were the reasons behind the creation of this fund.
The minister responded, “No money can be spent by the Government from the Consolidated Fund of India without authorization through an annual Budget presented before the Parliament,” when asked why the fund could not be operationalized yet. This is in accordance with Articles 112-114 & 266 of the Constitution. The Appropriations Act’s authorization, which is intended for that specific fiscal year, prevents the operationalization of a public fund that is not lapsable.
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Technology Development Fund (TDF)
In response to a different query, Bhatt stated that 16 innovations had been successfully produced under the Technology Development Fund (TDF) programme, to which the ministry had assigned 70 projects totaling Rs 291.25 crore.
The TDF, which is carried out by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is one of the MoD’s signature programmes. As a part of the “Make in India” effort, the scheme was introduced in 2016 with the goal of promoting military industry self-sufficiency.
According to the reply, the scheme’s primary goal is to give grant-in-aid to Indian industries—including startups and MSMEs—as well as academic and scientific institutions for the development of military and dual-use technologies that aren’t currently offered by the country’s defence sector.The response further stated that the program’s goal is to assist forward-thinking technologies that have reached proof of concept and turn them into prototypes.
