First defence production corridor to connect Chennai to Bengaluru

Presenting the Union Budget for 2018-19, finance minister Arun Jaitley has proposed a defence corridor that will connect the electronic hub of Bengaluru with the engineering hub of Chennai – the first of the two defence production corridors.

Jaitley announced that two defence industrial production corridors would be developed. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman hailed the move and said that an announcement on the second corridor would be made soon.

Jaitley said this would help develop an industry-friendly military production policy to promote the domestic defence industry.

In the last full budget of the Narendra Modi government, Rs2,95,000 crore has been set aside for the defence budget for the next fiscal which is an increase of 7.81 per cent over last year's Rs2,74,000 crore.

Out of the total allocation, the capital outlay for the three defence services for the purchase of new weapons, aircraft, warships and other military hardware has been pegged at Rs99,947 crore.

The outlay for defence budget amounted to 12.10 per cent of the total budget of Rs24,42,213 crore for 2018-19.

Compared to the revised estimate of Rs2,79,000 crore for the defence budget in 2017-18, the increase in allocation has been 5.91 per cent but compared to the budget outlay of Rs2,74,000 crore, the hike is 7.81 per cent.

The revenue expenditure, which covers payment of salary, maintenance of establishments and other related expenditure, has been pegged at Rs1,95,947 crore.