Bhubaneswar: Seeking guaranteed availability of funds for the Armed Forces, Army Chief General S Padmanabhan has said there should not be a situation where the Defence sector has to ponder how much funds it would get each year.

"I know my country can give me a certain amount of money. But I want a guaranteed availability... Let us say about three per cent of the GDP as a commitment over the next 10 to 15 years. Whatever time it takes, I shouldn't have to start thinking at the end of each year how much will the next year bring to us," Padmanabhan told reporters here last night.

The Defence Budget for 2002-03 was Rs 65,000 crore which was about 3.1 per cent of the GDP.

According to defence experts, the budgetary allocation this fiscal was the highest in relation to the GDP in the last 15 years.

Though there are many methods of calculatng and comparing defence expenditure, the percentage of the GDP is one of the preferred methods for this purpose.

The Defence budget started decreasing from a peak of 3.59 per cent of the GDP in 1987-88 to 2.24 per cent in 1994-95. It further decreased to 2.09 per cent the following year and has remained below 2.4 per cent till 2001-02 when it crossed three per cent.

PTI