IT department outlay for 2003-04 pegged at Rs 470 cr

NEW DELHI: Government has pegged the annual budget of the Department of IT at last year''s level of Rs 470 crore for the year 2003-04 even as DIT scaled down its original demand by over 50 per cent.
The Department had asked for a budget of Rs 1146.90 crore while at the revised estimate, but the demand was scaled down to Rs 517 crore and finally Rs 470 crore was allocated which is the same as the allocation last fiscal, IT department sources told PTI.The allocation is likely to result in shortage of funds for R&D and infrastructure upgrdation which the department was planning to take up in a big way, they said.
The fixation of annual budget of DIT at the same level is a result of the gross budgetary support of Rs 1,17,500 crore approved by the finance ministry against a demand by the Planning Commission for higher allocation at Rs 1,34,064 crore.
Anticipating a higher allocation, DIT had started earmarking funds for different expansion projects such as Rs 80 crore made for Media Lab Asia, Rs 30 crore for a DNA Bio-informatics park and Rs 20 crore for research in nanotechnology by setting up community information centres (CICs) in Andaman and Nicobar, Kashmir and new states like Chhatishgarh and Uttranchal.
The Tenth Plan (2002-07) funds projections for the department is Rs 2714 crore.