The most awaited Budget 2020 for FY 20-21 by Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman is here! We have won a good amount of goodies!
• Rs 2500 crore has been granted for tourism development
• Rs 3150 crore for Ministry of Culture
• 100 more new airports to be opened under UDAN by 2024
• 5 archaeological sites to get museums – Rakhi Gadi in Haryana, Hastinapur in UP, Dholavira in Gujarat, Shivsagar in Assam and Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu
• Tribal museum in Ranchi
• Indian Institute of Heritage and Conservation under Ministry of Culture proposed with the status of a deemed University for archaeology
• Re-curation of the Indian Museum in Kolkata, announced by Prime Minister in January 2020
• Museum on numismatics and trade to be located in the historic Old Mint building in Kolkata.
• 4 more museums from across the country to be taken up for renovation and re-curation.
• 5 new Smart cities to be set up via PPP model
• Rs 1.7 lakh crore allocated to transportation infrastructure
• Government to monetize 12 lots of national highways by 2024. Delhi-Mumbai expressway and two other projects to be completed by 2023. Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway to be started
• More Tejas-like trains to connect tourist sites
• Maritime museum to be set up at Lothal- the Harrapan age maritime site near Ahmedabad, by Ministry of Shipping
• Rs 22,000 crore allocated to to power and renewable energy
• Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure launched from September 2019. Its implementation will be from January 2021
• 4,400 crore allocated to promote clean air in cities with 1 million population
In one of the biggest move yet, the Finance Minister proposed a deemed Indian Institute of Heritage and Conservation. She was quoted saying, “Indian Institute of Heritage and Conservation under the Ministry of Culture shall have the status of a deemed university to start with. Acquisition of knowledge in disciplines such as museology and archeology are essential for collecting and analysing scientific evidence of such findings and for the semination through high quality museums,” Sitharaman told Parliamentarians.
Previously, the fund for Tourism Ministry had been hiked to Rs 2,189.22 crore in 2019-2020, from Rs 2,150 crore in the 2018-2019 Budget. The allocation for the Ministry of Culture had been increased to Rs 3,042.35 crore for 2019-2020, from Rs 2,843.32 crore in 2018-2019.
Jaideep Ghosh, Partner, KPMG in India welcomed this move by tweeting, “Grants to states for specified tourism initiatives, development of heritagesites and museums are welcome steps. However, I would expect the investments proposed in tourism, however, to be upped in the coming years.”
