Budget: MHA allocation sees small cut; lion’s share for CAPFs, Census

The Home Ministry has received an allocation of a little over ₹1,66,547 crore in the 2021-22 budget, an increase of 11.48 per cent from the current fiscal, with a majority of the funds going to the central armed police forces (CAPFs) and a substantial amount for census-related work.

However, the Ministry’s allocation was ₹1,67,250 crore in previous 2020-21 Budget, which was an increase of 20% over the revised estimates in 2019-20, which was ₹ 1,39,108 crore. This was 41% higher than the budget allocation of last year, which was ₹ 1,19,025 crore.

According to the Budget proposals presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Monday (February 1), ₹30,757 crore has been allocated to J&K and ₹5,958 crore to Ladakh – the two newly created UTs.

As much as ₹1,03,802.52 crore of the fund has been earmarked for the Central armed police forces such as the CRPF, the BSF and the CISF, and ₹3,768.28 crore for census operations. The work for the census 2021 has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Central sector schemes and projects of the MHA got ₹1,641.12 crore, while ₹481.61 crore has been allocated for disaster management.

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The UTs of Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been allocated ₹5,317.41 crore, Chandigarh got ₹4,661.12 crore, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu ₹2,204.59 crore, Lakshadweep ₹1,440.56 crore and Puducherry ₹1,729.79 crore.

The BSF received ₹20,729.54 crore in 2021-22, in comparison to ₹19,377.83 crore allocated in 2020-21 – an increase of 6.97 per cent.

The air wing of the BSF received ₹140.15 crore in comparison to ₹54.75 crore received last year – an increase of 155 per cent.

The ITBP, which guards 3,488 km long Sino-Indian border, received ₹6,567.17 crore in comparison to ₹6,150.15 crore last Budget – an increase of 6.78 per cent.

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The CRPF, which is deployed for internal security, maintenance of law and order and anti-militancy operations in J&K, received ₹26,197.90 crore in comparison to ₹24,788.28 crore in 2020-21 – an increase of 5.6 per cent.

The Intelligence Bureau received ₹2,839.24 crore in comparison to ₹2,433.89 crore last year – an increase of 16.6 per cent.

The CISF, which guards vital installations like nuclear plants, airports, key industries, metro networks and other important government buildings, received ₹10,341.83 crore in comparison to ₹10,676.98 crore last year.

The SSB, guarding India’s borders with Nepal (1,751 km) and Bhutan (699 km), received ₹6,479.74 crore in comparison to ₹5,950 crore in 2020-21.