by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Exclusive report
Dual charge of Defence puts Jaitley in a spot
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, March 23
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley found himself in a tight spot when he took over as Defence Minister’s charge after Manohar Parrikar demitted office earlier this month.
The piquant situation arose because as Defence Minister he will have the financial powers to buy weapon systems of Rs 2000 crores on his own without going to any other ministry or the PMO.
In fact, earlier this power was Rs 500 crores to the Defence Ministers. But the PM Narendra Modi enhanced from Rs 500 crore to Rs 2000 crore to buy weapon systems when Parrikar was Defence Minister.
Modi also directed through an executive order that the combined financial powers of the Defence and Finance Ministers will be Rs 3000 crores. The Defence & Finance Minister need not come to the Cabinet or to the PMO before buying defence equipment and they together can decided decide between them to buy up to Rs 3,000 crore. The decision to enhance the financial power of the key acquisition related ministers has been taken at the apex level by the Prime minister. The order was issued to enable services to carry out low valued essential purchases without waiting to get clearances. It had been a long pending demand of the services as one of the measures to speed up acquisitions.
However, with Jaitley assuming the charge of Finance & Defence ministries, he holds the power to buy weapon systems up to Rs 3000 crores.
It is authoritatively learnt that he raised the issue of with the PM recently that he holds only an additional responsibility until the new person arrives. Therefore, it will be not be desirable that he sit on judgment of two ministries for buying equipment. He is reported to have told the PM that a way be found to resolve the dilemma. When asked Jaitley told Lokmat informally that this issue has certainly put him in an awkward situation.
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