Gandhinagar, Feb 26 (TIWN) Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Nitin Patel on Wednesday presented a Budget of Rs 2,17,287 crore for the financial year 2020-21.

The defence budget has been hiked by 6 per cent from Rs 3.18 lakh crore to Rs 3.37 lakh crore in the Union Budget this year. With defence pensions, the total budget would go up to Rs 4.7 lakh crore.  For modernisation and buying new weapon systems, defence forces have been allocated Rs 1,10,734 crore which is Rs 10,340 more than what was provided in last year's budget.  The biggest hike in allocation for defence forces came in the defence pension budget goes up to Rs 1.33 lakh crore from last year's Rs 1.17 lakh crore allocated last year.  The hike in defence pension budget was more than the hike given in revenue and capital funds for defence.  The Union Budget for the financial year 2019-20, presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament envisaged a total outlay of Rs 27,86,349 crore.  Out of this Rs 3,18,931.22 crore had been earmarked for defence (excluding defence pension). For defence pension, an amount of Rs 1,12,079.57 crore had been provided in budget estimate 2019-20.