The funding for the AIDS control will reduce from Rs 1,016 crore to Rs 973 crore.

[Guest guest]

Not to forget slums, space and women 87% more funds to tackle urban poverty

Tuesday , July 7 , 2009

President Pratibha Patil's target of making India slum-free in five years got a

boost in Monday's budget when the finance minister increased the allocation for

the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission by 87 per cent to Rs 12,887 crore.

A chunk of this money would go for providing houses and infrastructure to the

urban poor under the Rajiv Awaas Yojana, a scheme yet to be launched.

The new plan, which comes under the urban renewal mission, has got an allocation

of Rs 3,973 crore. The yojana already has an initial budget of Rs 5,000 crore.

It is likely to be launched on August 20, the birth anniversary of the late

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The money, sources in the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation

said, would go a long way in fulfilling the targets set by minister Kumari Selja

for the first 100 days — that of improving 1,000 slum areas, constructing 10

lakh houses and a biometric survey of slums. " The budget has kept the focus on

housing for the urban poor, what else would we want. With this kind of

allocation, we will be able to meet our aims, " said an official in the ministry

of housing and urban poverty alleviation. The allocation for the urban renewal

mission also includes allocations for two flagship components for infrastructure

facilities in cities and towns.

The Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns will get

Rs 3073.56 crore and the Urban Infrastructure and Governance component will get

Rs 5117.26 crore.

Space budget shoots up

The government has increased the outlay for the space department by 42 per cent

over last year, with a five-fold rise in funding for preliminary studies on

technologies aimed at mastering human space flight.

The budget outlay for the Department of Space in 2009-10 will be Rs 4,959 crore.

The department spent Rs 3,499 crore last year.

Three projects account for the highest increases — an effort to bolster domestic

industry's capacity to deliver materials and components for the space programme,

studies on a semi-cryogenic engine for low-cost access to space and studies on

human space flight technologies.

The budget outlay for studies on detailed designs of a space capsule, life

support systems and techniques to improve reliability and safety will rise to Rs

230 crore in 2009-10 from Rs 42 crore last year.

Isro has submitted a project proposal to the government that envisions the

development of the space capsule that can ferry two astronauts to an altitude of

about 400km and return. An effort to develop a semi-cryogenic engine which uses

liquid oxygen and space-grade kerosene as fuel will also receive a major impetus

with outlay rising from Rs 4 crore last year to Rs 155 crore in 2009-10.

The semi-cryogenic engine is intended to be an inexpensive alternative to the

fully cryogenic engine which uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, Isro

sources said. A semi-cryogenic engine is expected to reduce the cost of

satellite launches.

An initiative to indigenise technologies by helping industry develop electronic

components and materials used in space programmes and to procure critical items

for future space missions will get Rs 213 crore in 2009-10, in contrast to Rs 23

crore last year.

Money power for women

The finance minister has indicated that the UPA will focus on self-help groups

as a vehicle for the empowerment of women, promising more funds and setting new

targets for female literacy and the expansion of such groups.

The corpus of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh — used to promote and fund self-help

groups — will be raised from Rs 100 crore to Rs 500 crore over " a few years " ,

Pranab Mukherjee said.

" Our objective is to enrol at least 50 per cent of all rural women in India as

members of self-help groups over the next five years and link these to banks, "

Mukherjee said in his budget speech.

The President, in her joint address to Parliament on June 4, had announced plans

to recast the National Literacy Mission — India's apex adult literacy programme

— as the National Mission for Female Literacy.

In her address, she had said the female literacy mission would aim to make every

Indian woman literate in five years.

The finance minister, while also speaking of the new mission, recast its target

— the mission will now strive to reduce present female illiteracy by half by

2012.

Mixed bag for health

The budget for the health sector has proposed a 16 per cent rise in funds for

the National Rural Health Mission and a 53 per cent increase in the outlay for

new initiatives in traditional medicine, including the creation of a folk

medicine centre in Arunachal Pradesh.

The outlay for the Department of Health and Family Welfare has gone up 22 per

cent to Rs 21,113 crore from Rs 17,307 crore last year.

But cancer research and the National AIDS Control Programme have been struck by

dips in funding. Government spending on cancer research will drop from Rs 112

crore last year to Rs 86 crore this year. The funding for the AIDS control

programme will reduce from Rs 1,016 crore to Rs 973 crore.

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