As India prepares for its maiden human spaceflight, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday (February 1) allocated Rs 13,700 crore to the Department of Space in the Union Budget.

The allocation was an increase of Rs 1,058 crore over the revised estimate of Rs 12,642 crore in the previous budget.

A giant share of the allocation – Rs 10,534 crore – has been made under the head of space technology that covers most of the centres of ISRO.

ISRO plans to launch India’s first unmanned space mission under ‘Gaganyaan’ later this year.

The selected Indian astronauts have successfully undergone Generic Space Flight Training in Russia and an ad-hoc astronaut training centre has also been established at Bangalore.

The preparations for the manned mission involve in-flight demonstration of the Crew Escape System functioning in the lower atmosphere. The exercise recovery of the crew module after impacting the sea is also being worked out.

Sitharaman made a marginal increase in the allocation for Department of Atomic Energy to Rs 22,723.58 crore, as against Rs 22,707.21 crore.