Budget 2020: MHA allocation rises by 40% riding on money for J-K, Ladakh

The newly-created Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were allocated Rs 36,715 crore in the Budget on Saturday, leading to a 40.51% increase in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) coffers for spending in the next fiscal.

The MHA was allocated Rs 1.67 lakh crore, an increase of Rs 48,225.05 crore from the previous allocation of Rs 1.19 lakh crore in 2019-20, by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her second Budget presented in the Lok Sabha with the bulk of the money going to police, paramilitary and infrastructure programmes.

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If one takes the revised Budget estimates, the rise is 20.23% (Rs 28,142.14 crore) from Rs 1.39 lakh crore. The actual spending by the MHA in 2018-19 was Rs 1.12 lakh crore.

One of the highlights of the Budget speech was Sitharaman's announcement on the allocation for the two Union Territories, which came into being on Oct. 31 last year after the government scrapped the special status for the state.

"The government is fully committed to supporting the all-round development of the newly formed Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladakh. Accordingly, an amount of Rs 30,757 crore has been provided for the financial year 2020-21 (to J-K). An amount of Rs 5,958 crore has been provided for the Union Territory of Ladakh," she said.

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While the money allocated for Jammu and Kashmir will go as a grant-in-aid for the local administration to spend, the MHA will be in direct control of the administration of Ladakh as it does not have a legislature. For Ladakh, the tribal area component comes to Rs 3,476.84 crore while Rs 83.38 crore has been earmarked for rural development, Rs 80.69 crore for public works, Rs 52 crore for civil aviation, Rs 54.07 crore for power and Rs 47.50 crore for tourism.

The allocation for the Special Protection Group (SPG) has witnessed a rise though the government last year withdrew the elite security cover for former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and top Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. At present, only Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under SPG protection.

This time, the SPG has been allocated Rs 592.55 crore as against Rs 535.45 crore in the previous Budget and Rs 540.16 crore revised estimates. In 2018-19, the actual spending was Rs 409.78 crore.

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However, there has been a decrease in funds for the modernisation of police forces, spending on security-related expenses and infrastructure development in Naxal-affected states as well as for border infrastructure and management, the Budget document showed. Funding to tackle cybercrime has been reduced with Rs 79.80 crore provided to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre as compared to Rs 100 crore, which was allocated in the previous Budget.

The large portion of the allocation, as usual, is going to the paramilitary, border security and intelligence agencies among others with Sitharaman providing Rs 1.05 lakh crore this time as against the previous allocation of Rs 98,202.23 crore and revised estimates of Rs 1.03 lakh crore.

The paramilitary forces, including the CRPF, the BSF, the ITBP, the CISF, the SSB, the Assam Rifles and the National Security Guard, have been allocated Rs 77,886.52 crore, which is a rise from Rs 71,713.9 crore in the previous Budget and Rs 67,779.75 crore in 2018-19.

The CRPF has been allocated Rs 26,259.41 crore in 2020-21 as against Rs 23,963.66 crore in 2019-20. The BSF, which guards the Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangladesh borders, has been allocated Rs 20,952.49 crore.

The Intelligence Bureau, which is responsible for gathering internal intelligence, has been allocated Rs 2,575.25 crore as against Rs 2,384.1 crore in the last Budget.