Indian plans to launch uncrewed Gaganyaan mission by end of this year

The Ministry of Science & Technology was allocated Rs 14,217.46 crore for the Financial Year 2022-23 in the Budget laid out by Finance Minister Nirmal Sitharaman on Tuesday. The allocation is Rs 833 crore more than FY 2021-22 figures, which was at Rs 13,438 crore. The figures were released by the Finance Ministry as part of its budget estimates for the new financial year.

The Rs 14,217.46 crore budget has been divided between the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The Department of Science and Technology has received the biggest chunk of the allocations with Rs 6,000 crore earmarked for infrastructure, research and development.

The Department of Biotechnology has been given Rs 2,581 crores and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has been allocated Rs 5,636.46 in the new financial year.

The Department of Space, headed by ISRO chief S Somnath, has been allocated Rs 13,700 crore in the Budget 2022. The new allocation is nearly Rs 1,000 crore more than last year's announcement. The jump in the budgetary allocation comes on the back of India pushing its ambitious space mission Gaganyaan, along with the planned launch of Aditya L1 to the Sun and the development of a mission to Venus, among others.

Focus On Countering Climate Change

As the Centre announced plans to counter climate change with several pilot projects and enabling better green energy, the Finance Minister allocated Rs 3,030 crore to Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. The allocation is up from Rs 2,520 earmarked for the ministry in the previous year's budget.

The government will spend Rs 78.62 crore on environmental knowledge and capacity building as it looks to create awareness among people about the impacts of climate change. The finance minister in her budget speech announced four pilot projects for the conversion of coal to energy along with an additional allocation of Rs 19,500 crore to facilitate domestic manufacturing to boost 280 gigawatts of installed solar capacity by 2030.