The funds for the ministry of culture has been hiked for the coming financial year, with the Union Budget proposing an expenditure of Rs 932.61 crore (RS 9.32 billion) compared to last year's Rs 760 crore (Rs 7.6 billion).

Archaeology and maintaining archives and museums have been allocated the major chunk of the funds, with Rs 451.61 crore (Rs 4.51 billion) for this purpose as compared to Rs 393.05 crore (Rs 3.93 billion) spent on it last year.

Rs 279.60 crore (Rs 2.79 billion) have been earmarked for promotion of art and culture compared to Rs 218.66 crore (Rs 2.18 billion) in 2006-07.

During the annual plan 2007-08, the ministry of culture is slated to implement nine new plan schemes, including safeguarding intangible heritage and cultural diversity, awareness creation in the area of intellectual property rights and setting up of national IPR cell for artists and artisans, promotion and dissemination of awareness about Indian culture and heritage, cultural heritage volunteers scheme and a pilot scheme for cultural industries.

The other schemes comprise a centre for management of cultural resources, scheme for modernisation of museums in metro cities, setting up of a national mission on libraries that will lead to formation of a commission and development of the Jalianwalan Bagh Memorial.

An amount of Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) has been earmarked for the Jalianwalan building project.

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the First War of Independence and the 2550th anniversary of the Mahaparinirvana of Lord Buddha are among the major events lined up for 2007-08.

The ministry of culture also proposes to engage scholars from Indian and foreign institutions to work on specific projects, for which an initial of Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) would be made available.