Over 35% hike in budget for Department of Space

Budget for India's Space strides was today hiked by little over one third of its last year's allocation with the human space flight and Chandrayaan-II cornering handsome amounts.

The Human Space Flight programme of ISRO was allocated Rs 98.81 crore as against the token amount of Rs 14.71 crore last year, while the sequel to India's maiden moon mission got Rs 80 crore as against Rs 25 crore the previous year.

The Department of Atomic Energy also saw the allocation made to it by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the General Budget for 2011-12 increase to Rs 9352 crore from Rs 8,157.47 crore the previous year.

The India Meteorological Department cornered Rs 352 crore out of the total Rs 1,567 crore allocation, including plan and non-plan categories, of the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

The Ministry of Science and Technology was allocated Rs 7544 crore on the whole. The Department of Science and Technology got Rs 2,733 crore, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research received Rs 3385 crore and Rs 1,426.92 crore was set aside for the Department of Biotechnology.

Among key amounts allocated to the Department of Space was Rs 410 crore for GSAT-11, the advanced communication satellite it plans to launch in the future.

ISRO's ambitious plans to develop a next generation rocket for launching heavier satellites -- GSLV Mark III -- was allocated Rs 292.46 crore, while the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment was given Rs 65.64 crore.

The new missions for earth observation, which include launch of satellites like RISAT-3 and Cartosat-3, was allocated Rs 200 crore.