Year 2000 Appropriations Bill in parliament
[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 October 1999, 11:47 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government's defence expenditure allocation for the year 2000 has risen to 52.43 billion rupees (728 million USD), according to the Appropriations Bill presented in parliament yesterday. This is an increase of 5.43 billion rupees (11.5 percent) compared to last year's defence allocation.
The defence expenditure, however, has been increased by supplementary allocations. In the Defence Budget, which is nearly 18 percent of the planned expenditure, about 24 billion rupees have been allocated to the Army, 8.33 billion rupees to Navy, 8.3 billion rupees to Air Force, and 10.5 billion rupees to the Police. The budget for the Ministry of Finance and Planning is set at 31.98 billion rupees while the budget for Health and Indigenous Medicine is 16 billion rupees. Social services have been allocated Rs. 2.34 billion and Education and Higher Education are to receive 18.33 billion rupees. The budget for Agriculture & Lands is 6.48 billion while Women's Affairs is to receive Rs. 9.97 billion. The Ministry of Buddha Sasana is to get 0.14 billion rupees. According to the bill, presented in the parliament by the Minister of Plan Implementation and Parliamentary Affairs, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, the government's total planned expenditure for next year is to be 291.8 billion rupees (4.04 billion USD).
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