Why does India's defence budget fall short?

India’s defence budget has been a subject of debate in the public domain only recently. Public attention on defence budgeting has come about after attaining a certain level of development in the country and the rising aspirations of an emerging power which denotes the requirement to be self sufficient in terms of provisioning for the requirements of defence of the country. Despite this recognition and public statements by key leaders, India’s defence spending has been comparatively low at 16-17 percent of the overall central government expenditure in the past decade plus. In terms of GDP which though not an accurate estimate has been well below the 2 % for many years now and thus indicating that India is not willing to provide for expenditure for defence and security and will focus on development. Such a situation however cannot last for long and there is a recognition of this facet in various quarters in recent years, thus additional budgetary allocations for defence are envisaged.