Environment ministry gets 20 percent hike in budget allocation from centre

The government Friday increased the budgetary allocation for the Environment Ministry by 20.27 percent to Rs 3,111.20 crore as it presented the interim budget for 2019-20. In the last fiscal, the ministry was allocated Rs 2,586.67 crore.

In the wildlife arena, the government-initiated projects - Project Tiger and Project Elephant - saw no change in their allocation compared to last year. The current fiscal's allocation of Rs 350 crore for Project Tiger, an initiative for conserving the wildcats, and Rs 30 crore for Project Elephant, which was launched to conserve the jumbos across the country, remains unchanged for 2019-20.

Welcoming the allocation towards the projects, Nishant Verma, the Deputy Inspector General of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), said the amount was appropriate. "The amount allocated by the government for Project Tiger is absolutely appropriate. We wanted this amount only," Verma said.

The interim budget, presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, however, raised the allocation for the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body under the Ministry for tiger conservation, to Rs 10 crore for 2019-20 from Rs 9 crore last fiscal. The revised allocation for NTCA for 2018-19 was also Rs 10 crore.

At Rs 100 crore, the 2019-20 allocation also remained the same as last year for the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the central pollution watchdog. The revised allocation for the year 2018-19 was 114.42 crore. However, the Centre decreased the allocation for pollution abatement by 50 percent from Rs 20 crore last year to Rs 10 crore for 2019-20.

An official from the CPCB refused to comment on the reduction of budget for pollution control saying he was yet to go through the document. However, several environment activists and experts criticised the government for not adequately allocating the budget for controlling pollution and climate change issues. The Animal Welfare Noard (AWB) got an increase of Rs 2 crore in the budget. The Centre has allocated Rs 12 crore for AWB for 2019-20. It was Rs 10 crore in 2018-19. The budget for National Commission for Green India has been increased from Rs 210 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 240 crore in 2019-20.

(With inputs from agencies.)