New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) India’s atomic energy and space programmes received handsome increases in their annual allocation of around 31 percent and 43 percent, respectively, over the previous year in the budget for 2011-12 presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Monday.
The department of space (DOS) got a sum of Rs.5,700 crore for 2011-12 as against the revised estimates of Rs.4,000 crore.
The major chunk of funding around Rs.3,444 crore went to space technology, which included launch vehicle technology, followed by Rs.1,058 crore for INSAT operational system.
A sum of Rs.65 crore has been allocated to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) manned mission to space, while Rs.80 crore has been set aside for the lunar missions Chandrayan – 1 & 2.
ISRO has worked out the total cost of the human space flight programme at Rs.12,000 crore.
For department of atomic energy (DAE), the budget estimate for next fiscal is Rs.10,012 crore, up from the revised estimates of Rs.7,628 crore for 2010-11. The budget estimate for the year 2010-11 was Rs.8,226 crore while the actual amount spent for the year 2009-10 was Rs.6,527 crore.
On the other hand, the science and technology ministry got an budgetary allocation of Rs.5,679 crore for the next fiscal – an increase of 18 percent over the previous year’s revised estimate of Rs.4,817 crore.
A large amount of the money will go as assistance to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s national laboratories and for multi-disciplinary research in frontier areas of science and technology.
The budgetary allocation for the department of biotechnology under the ministry of science and technology saw an increase of Rs.1,400 crore this year from Rs.1,200 crore last year.
