ISLAMABAD: In an indication that major defence purchases are being planned for next financial year, the Pakistan Army has sought an increase in the development component of allocation it gets in the country`s annual budget.

The case for increase in the army`s development budget was made during a rare visit by the finance minister to the General Headquarters for consultations with the army chief on the next year`s defence budget.

`Finance Minister Ishaq Dar called on the Chief of Army Staff Gen RaheelSharif. During the meeting issues related to the army`s development programme came under discussion,` a military spokesman said.

The development component of the army`s budget includes indigenous purchases, imports and civil works.

The army has begun work on a new cantonment in Swat, but expenditures are paid out of a separate head for Military Lands and Cantonments.

Mr Dar assured Gen Sharif that the army`s demand would be given consideration.

`(The) finance minister said the present government accords priority to national security and shall meet every possible requirement of the armed forces so that they can carry out their assigned mission of defending the motherland,` the spokesman said.

The government is already in negotiations with China for new purchases and has also given a wish list to theUnited States.

Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam, at a media briefing on Thursday, confirmed that Pakistan was considering purchase of defence hardware from China. `We have to keep a level of conventional stability,` she said, adding that `our defence acquisitions should be seen in the regional context`.

The wish list for the US, meanwhile, was delivered during last month`s meeting of the `defence resourcing group`in Washington.

Gen Sharif, soon after assuming the charge of army chief last year, told a military gathering that `modernisation` (of equipment) would be his priority in the quest `to prepare for the future threat`.

An army officer, talking in private, said meeting expenditures of development projects had always been a major challenge because a large portion of allocation went into overhead costs.

A defence ministry docu-ment, available with Dawn, showed that 19 per cent of the funds given to the army were reserved for the development side.

`We have always made the case for new acquisitions,` a defence ministryofficial said.

Rare visit Services chiefs have regularly pushed their case for increase in allocation in the budget with the government and meetings between them and finance ministers on this issue are routine. But it was unusual for Mr Dar to have visited GHQ for listening to the military`s demands.

The visit was, however, seen favourably within the army.

A senior army officer described it as a `useful exercise for understanding the requirements` According to the SOP (standard operating procedure) for defence budget preparation, all three services route their requirementsthrough the Joint Services Headquarters (JSHQ) instead of placing them before the finance ministry directly. The proposals from the JSHQ go to the ministry of defence before being forwarded to the finance ministry. The army has traditionally got the biggest slice in the defence budget, which has quite often caused heartburn among the other two services.

This year the army got an allocation of Rs301.54 billion out of a total of Rs627bn defence budget. The share of Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Navy in the current fiscal budget was Rs120.1bn and Rs62.8bn, respectively.

The outlay for next year`s defence budget is likely to be around Rs705bn an increase of roughly 12pc.