Govt seeks House nod for ₹66,113-cr extra spending in 2017-18
The Centre on Monday sought Parliament’s approval for additional expenditure of ₹66,113 crore, which includes funds to roll out schemes for giving electricity connections to the poor and payment of urea subsidies. Finance minister Arun Jaitley moved the second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2017-18 in the Lok Sabha.
Approval of the Parliament is sought to authorise gross additional expenditure of ₹66,113.44 crore, said the document on ‘Second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants, 2017-2018’.
“Of this, the proposals involving net cash outgo aggregates to ₹33,379.99 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the ministries/departments or by enhanced receipts/ recoveries aggregates to ₹32,732.05 crore,” it said.
Major spending heads include ₹1,033.8 crore towards grants for creation of capital assets, subsidies and other charges for Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya).
Another R3,594.57 crore was provided to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. As much as ₹20,532.5 crore was provided for urea freight subsidy, while another ₹15,908 crore was provided for national highways.
Jaitley also sought Parliament’s approval for “token provision” of ₹1.3 crore — ₹1 lakh for each item of expenditure — for enabling re-appropriation of savings in cases involving ‘new service or instrument of service’.
The government has sought approval for ₹960 crore towards establishment related expenditure, including payment of advance user charges to GSTN and information technology. Further, ₹5,905 crore has been sought for payment of increased pensionary benefits upon revision of pensionary entitlement on account of implementation of recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission.
Supplementary demand has been sought for grants for creation of capital assets, subsidies and charges for ‘Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojna’ (Saubhagya) under the ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna’.
As per the document, the Centre is seeking Parliament’s nod for ₹3,480.44 crore for providing extra subsidy of interest liability in respect of loan granted to Food Corp of India from National Small Savings Fund and food subsidy to FCI, among others.
NEWDELHI: