New Delhi, Dec 8 (IANS) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on Monday, launched a scathing attack on the Congress in the Rajya Sabha, saying the party did not give adequate priority to allocations for the country’s defence when it was in power.

Speaking on the floor of the Upper House, the Finance Minister said the then Defence Minister A.K. Antony, said in the Parliament — “I can’t buy these defence equipment because I don’t have the money.”

“This was the approach with which Congress went. The defence coffers was not a priority for them,” she remarked.

Mounting a scathing attack on the opposition party, Finance Minister Sitharaman said, “Our soldiers did not have snow boots to wear in the high altitude areas”, where they were defending the country during the erstwhile Congress regime.

She also said that the Army did not have enough ammunition for fighting more than 17 days of an intense war.

She cited a CAG report pertaining to the year 2013 as saying that “in the case of some types of ammunition the Army was down to only 10-day stocks required to fight an intense war”.

The Finance Minister in sharp contrast to this said that once Narendra Modi came to power as the Prime Minister of the country, the expenditure on defence was accorded high priority.

“More ammunition was ordered and expired stocks of ammunition with the Army were also replaced by the BJP-led Union government. Besides, bullet-proof vests were ordered for the soldiers,” she added.

Finance Minister Sitharaman also said that PM Modi had also gone a step ahead by focusing on increasing production of military hardware to replace imports of equipment in order to strengthen the Defence forces.

“While India was earlier heavily dependent on imports, the country now exports around Rs 25,000 crore worth of defence equipment,” she added.

Replying to the debate on the “Health Security se National Security Cess Bill, 2025” in the Upper House, Finance Minister Sitharaman said the cess offers a feasible mechanism to strengthen citizens’ health and the country’s military preparedness.

She said the cess will be levied only on demerit goods, not on any essential items.

The Union Minister said that raising a dedicated stream of revenue for credible defence capabilities is very important in this era, as the security apparatus is changing rapidly.

She added that modern conflicts are dominated by precision weapons, autonomous systems and space assets.

All these require capital-intensive, continuous and steady expenditure, she said.

The Finance Minister added that the Union government acknowledges that health is a state subject, which is why the revenue collected from cess is being shared with the states.

She said that under the earlier GST regime, sin goods or demerit goods attracted GST along with a compensation cess, pushing the total incidence as high as 88 per cent in some cases and always above 40 per cent.

She added that with the advent of next-generation GST, the compensation cess has been phased out, and GST alone now provides a cap of 40 per cent.

–IANS

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