In an unusual move, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s speech announcing the Union Budget for fiscal year 2016-17 skipped the part about defence allocation.
Now, defence allocation usually comes under massive scrutiny, which is perhaps why journalists were among the first to spot the discrepancy.
What is stranger is that for a good hour after the speech concluded, the Finance Ministry’s website for Union Budget - http://indiabudget.nic.in - had last year’s speech online.
Now, in case you were wondering, the budgetary allocation for Defence is Rs 3,40,921.98 Cr and the capital outlay on the defence services is Rs 78,586.68. This is based on reports that came in well over an hour after the speech concluded.
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