India’s Defense Budget Shows Cautious Increase
India is maintaining funding for major procurement programs, but there is no major increase, and there are big changes in the supplier approval process.
Due to changes in CEMILAC’s approval process, large companies such as HAL (whose product portfolio includes the ALH helicopter) may now find themselves competing with small entities for defense business. (photo: Neelam Mathews)
Due to changes in CEMILAC’s approval process, large companies such as HAL (whose product portfolio includes the ALH helicopter) may now find themselves competing with small entities for defense business. (photo: Neelam Mathews)

India’s 2020 defense budget, which represents 1.58 percent of the GDP, has been crafted to keep the limitations of the slowdown in the economy under consideration. The increase of 6.2 percent over the previous year takes into account committed liabilities and outflows. This could likely lead to the signing of new defense projects and upgrade contracts in the financial year starting April 1, 2020.