A budget committee for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies endorsed a Mexican Federal government plan to increase the defense budget by 300,0130,000 pesos (USD $24,578,535) approving nearly all the proposed 400,000,000 pesos increase request, according to Mexican press accounts.
Implicit in the request is a plan by the Secretaria de Defense (SEDENA) to form 18 more rifle battalions for deployment in northern states. The plan was proposed only a few months ago.
Chairman of the budget committee Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) deputy Arturo Vagus said the increase was for the only institution "capable of facing the crisis of violence."
Reports indicate that half the increase wound be committed in the current budget year and the rest to be committed to increasing military salaries in 2011.
Specific expenditures call for recruiting 10,000 more soldiers, purchases of military rapid pursuit vehicles, maintenance of C-130 Hercules aircraft, the purchase of bulletproof vests and parachutes, and purchase and repair of weapons.
The plan includes the formation of 18 more rifle battalions to be deployed in the states of Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Sonora, Durango and Sinaloa, and to reinforce operations in Michoacan, Veracruz, Guerrero, Mexico State and Morelos.
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"It takes 10,000 additional troops to do the work of national security, fighting crime and natural disasters, as we have battalions that go to meet rains in Veracruz and to fight drug gangs in Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua, some of which have not had a day off in three or four months, " Vargas added.