The foreign ministry has seen a good hike of 19 per cent in its fund allocations in the Union Budget 2015-16 as the main thrust remained towards various development assistance projects implemented by India in neighbouring countries including Bhutan and Afghanistan.
While Rs 12,620 crore was given by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Revised Estimates 2014-15, the allocation has been raised to Rs 14966.83 crore for 2015-16 for the Ministry, which is headed by Sushma Swaraj.
The major thrust of the Ministry’s budgetary allocation continues to be towards Technical and Economic Cooperation under which various development assistance projects are being implemented in other countries. Rs 9,107 crore has been alloted this year under this head as compared to the Rs 7,234.26 crore last fiscal.
As much as about 61 per cent of the Ministry’s budget is allocated towards Technical and Economic Cooperation with other countries, ministry officials said.
The allocations under various heads include aid to Bhutan and Afghanistan of Rs 6160.20 crore and Rs 676 crore respectively.
While Sri Lanka gets Rs 500 crore, Maldives’ assistance stands at Rs 183 crore, this includes both Plan and non-Plan allocations.
While Capital Outlay on Public Works/Housing which caters to construction/purchase of chanceries/residences abroad and Passport offices in India is at Rs 330 crore, Secretariat (Headquarters) which deals with establishment expenses in Headquarters and for outreach activities stands at Rs 297.98 crore.
For establishment expenses of Missions/Posts abroad, a Rs 2265.01 crore budgetary allocation has been kept.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.