In the 17 months that the NDA government has been in power, the Defence Acquisition Committee (DAC) that vets all big-ticket deals has cleared projects worth a whopping Rs.3.1 lakh crore ($47 billion), but none of these are anywhere near closure. Against this, just `1.8 lakh crore have been allocated in the budgets for 2014-15 and 2015-16 under the capital expenditure head for purchase of hardware.
Thus, it would seem that despite Defence Ministry´s grandiose plans, money is yet to be allocated for a substantial portion of the acquisitions. The only big ticket acquisition by the present government has been that of 22 Apache and 15 Chinook helicopters for Rs.20,000 crore ($3.1 billion). The deal was signed during PM Narendra Modi´s visit to the US last month, although the negotiations had been cleared by the previous UPA Government in 2013.
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