Govt seeks House nod for ₹66,113-cr additional spending
NEWDELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday sought parliamentary approval for gross additional expenditure of ₹66,113 crore, which includes funds for payment of urea subsidies and meeting additional demands for the national job guarantee scheme, through a second supplementary demand for grants.
However, the net cash outgo from the exchequer will be ₹33,380 crore as the rest will be met through departmental savings or enhanced receipts. Most of the expenditure is under the head of revenue expenditure (₹31,507 crore) while only ₹1,873 crore is earmarked for capital expenditure.
Interestingly, government did not allocate money for bank recapitalisation bonds, indicating a decision is yet to be taken on the timing of its implementation.
NR Bhanumurthy, professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, said the fiscal deficit target of 3.2% of GDP for 2017-18 may face some risk after the second supplementary demands for grants.
“It will all depend on the overall revenue generation in the current fiscal and the timing of issuance of the bank recapitalisation bonds.”
Jaitley has indicated that while fiscal consolidation will continue, the glide path of reaching 3% (of GDP) fiscal deficit by 2018-19 may need to be revisited given the uncertainty regarding revenue collections after the goods and services tax (GST) was implemented on July 1.
For meeting expenditure to clear liabilities towards urea freight subsidy and writing off the loans and waiver of interest in respect of three state-owned fertiliser firms, the government provided ₹20,532.5 crore. Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the government provided ₹3,595 crore to meet additional demand this fiscal.
The finance ministry on July 27 had sought Parliament’s approval for an additional expenditure of ₹11,166 crore for 2017-18 as part of the first batch of supplementary demands for grants. Of the additional expenditure, the net cash outgo is ₹10,647.45 crore while the rest will be met through savings or enhanced receipts by government departments.
The winter session of Parliament, which began on December 15, will have 14 sittings. The session will come to an end on January 5.