Big financial push for Deep Ocean Mission in Union Budget

In June last year, the Rs 4,077-crore Deep Ocean Mission was given Union Cabinet approval and it is among MoES projects to bag the highest jump in fund share this year. With this, it is expected that research works would be taken up at an accelerated pace this year. In the upcoming financial year, a sum of Rs 650 crore has been announced for this mission. A estimated Rs 2,823.4 crore will be spent during the mission’s first phase scheduled between 2021 and 2024.

The mission covers development of technologies for deep sea mining, a manned submersible, development of ocean climate change advisory services, development of technology for exploration, conservation of deep-sea biodiversity and deep ocean survey and setting up of a marine station for ocean biology.

However, the autonomous institutions operating under the aegis of the MoES have not been allotted appreciable hike in their annual budgets. From a total of Rs 183 crore in the last financial year, the five autonomous institutions will be given Rs 199.07 crore during 2022 – 2023.