Outlay for DoS pegged at ₹13,479 cr.; third trip to moon among missions on anvil

The Department of Space (DoS) gets a proposed 8% increase in the outlay for fiscal 2020-21, a year when it plans to send out expensive missions such as a third trip to the moon and a test flight ahead of an actual astronaut mission.

The Budget allocation has increased to about ₹13,479 crore, from about ₹12,473 crore that was earmarked in the Budget for 2019-20.

The department’s nodal Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) overshot that budget and spent about ₹666 crore more than its share for the year. Revised estimates for 2019-20 put the total Space spending at about ₹13,139 crore.

At a news conference on January 1, ISRO Chairman and DoS Secretary K. Sivan had said the department had sought about ₹14,000 crore for the coming fiscal. Chandrayaan-3, the country’s second attempt to land near the south pole of the moon and planned for the turn of 2020, would cost about ₹600 crore, he had said.

Bulky spend

During the ongoing fiscal year 2019-20, space technology got the bulk of allocation at ₹8,407 crore; this spending is expected to touch ₹8,991 crore as per the revised estimates released on Saturday.

The new Budget sets aside ₹9,761 crore, or 72%, of the outlay towards this head. The head ‘space technologies’ covers development of spacecraft, launchers, payloads on satellites and the ground system that receives, interprets and provides data for various uses, according to an ISRO official.

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Space entrepreneur and policy professional Narayan Prasad said the budget for the Space programme had not seen a massive increase as “the government has already provided for 30 PSLV and 10 GSLV missions — which should keep ISRO busy for some time.”

Also, Gaganyaan, the ₹ 0,000-crore national mission to send Indian astronauts to space for the first time from the country, and a few major missions are in execution mode, he said.

Last April, the government approved phase 4 funding of ₹2,720 crore for 10 GSLVs through 2024. In 2018, it approved phase 6 funding of ₹6,000 crore for 30 continuation PSLV launchers, also due to be executed by 2024.