The Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar has categorically rejected an increase in the Army’s budget for the fiscal year 2022-23. In fact, he said the budget has been decreased.
To clarify, the Budget 2022-23 became the target of much controversy, especially when a sum of Rs1,527 billion was allocated to defense services for 2022-23, which is an increase of 11.2% from the original estimates for the current year.
While the defense budget makes up 17.5pc of the total current expenditure, it is in sharp contrast to the cuts in spending on the development sector, health, and housing. Therefore, a lot of criticism racked up for both the army and the government.
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However, in an interview with a private news channel, the DG ISPR defended the budget allocation for the army and denied that it has seen an increase.
Pak Army’s budget decreased
DG Iftikhar said that the money earmarked for defense services was based on the “threat perception, challenges, deployment, and the resources available”.
“So [after] considering at all these things, the army hasn’t had any [net] increase in the budget since 2020,” the DG ISPR claimed.
“When you look at inflation and rupee depreciation, it (defense budget) is actually reduced. It was 2.8% of GDP last year and now we are at 2.2% so the budget is continuously going down in GDP terms,” DG Babar Iftikhar further added. He said that after factoring in this year’s inflation, the defense budget had actually taken a hit of Rs100bn.
Asked about the budget, Major General Babar Iftikhar said that India has always increased the defense budget. Since 2020, Pakistan's armed forces have not increased their budgets. The defense budget is going down in the GDP percentage.#Army_PillarOfStability
@Takbeer64 pic.twitter.com/Xf2J8N6diw— تکبیر (@intvi64) June 15, 2022
He then compared Pakistan’s defense budget with India’s. The DG ISPR said that the neighboring country has been expanding its budget but Pakistan had not increased its allocation since 2020.
“If you look at the defense budget from an inflationary perspective, then it has been reduced. The budget of the armed force, compared to the GDP, is constantly going down,” said Maj Gen Iftikhar.
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