Additional spends: Parliament okays Rs. 58k crores, mainly for rural and farm sectors
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: During the ongoing Winter Session, Parliament on Tuesday approved a net additional spending of Rs 58,378 crore in the current fiscal ending March 2024, with a large chunk allocated to MGNREGA and fertilizer subsidies.
The gross additional spending would now be more than Rs 1.29 lakh crore, out of which Rs 70,968 crore would be matched by savings and receipts.
On Tuesday, Rajya Sabha returned the two appropriation bills to Lok Sabha after a brief discussion.
Most of the members participating in the debate on these proposals were from the Treasury benches as a large number of Opposition members are suspended from the House. Even the Opposition members present did not participate in the discussion.
Last week, Lok Sabha passed the supplementary demands for grants after a short discussion.
Replying to the discussion on Supplementary Demands for Grants in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaowdhary highlighted the key aspects of the first batch of demands for grants.
As per the demands for grants, the net additional spending by the government would be Rs 58,378.21 crore in the current fiscal (FY24).
The additional expenditure includes Rs 13,351 crore towards fertilizer subsidies and about Rs 7,000 crore towards spending by the Department of Food and Public Distribution.
An additional outgo of Rs 9,200 crore is towards spending by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Rs 14,524 crore by the Ministry of Rural Development towards MGNREGA is included in the supplementary demands.
The total supplementary demands for spending by the Ministry of External Affairs is Rs 20,000 crore, which would be adjusted against the reduction of expenditure of over Rs 9,000 crore.
For the full 2023-24 financial year, the government has budgeted the fiscal deficit to be Rs 17.86 lakh crore or 5.9 percent of the GDP.
