New Delhi: Even when the Union Finance Minister busied himself in addressing the grass-roots problems in the Union Budget for 2007-08 on Wednesday, he also took time off to reach out for the sky.
In his general Budget, the Finance Minister has cornered an allocation of Rs 50 crore for India's ambitious manned spaceflight. Announcing this, P Chidambaram said the Government has earmarked Rs 50 crore to the Department of Space for the Manned Mission Initiatives.
Under the initiative, the Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO is expected to undertake mission design, analysis and development of critical technologies and facilities as pre-project activities.
ISRO is playing a lead role in developing a fully autonomous orbital vehicle to carry two-member crew to low-earth orbit and safely return them to earth. Last year, leading scientists met in Bangalore and expressed their support to India undertaking a manned space flight by 2014.
The Budget also proposed Rs 96 crore for Chandrayaan-I, India's maiden lunar mission, scheduled to be launched in March next year. Nearly half of the Rs 861.6-crore hike in budgetary allocation to the Department of Space has been earmarked to improve the satellite launch vehicle technology.
(With PTI inputs)
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