Govt seeks parliament nod for ₹3.73l cr extra spending
The government on Friday sought Parliament’s nod to infuse over ₹62,000 crore into the company that holds residual assets and liabilities of Air India after its privatisation, as part of over ₹3.73 lakh crore additional spending planned in the current financial year.
The extra spending would include ₹58,430 crore by way of additional fertiliser subsidy, ₹53,123 crore towards payment of pending export incentives and ₹ 22,039 crore to rural development ministry for transfer to National Rural Employment Guarantee Fund.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary tabled the second batch of supplementary demands for grants in the Lok Sabha envisaging a net cash outgo of over ₹2.99 lakh crore and ₹74,517 crore extra expenditure would be matched by savings by different ministries.
Later, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the supplementary demands for grants for 2021-22 in the Rajya Sabha.
As per the document, ₹62,057 crore would be given to the Civil Aviation Ministry for equity infusion in Air India Assets Holding Company (AIAHL) for repayment of past government guaranteed borrowing and past dues/liabilities of Air India.
In October, the government signed the share purchase agreement with Tata Sons for the sale of Air India, along with low- cost carrier Air India Express and ground handling arm AISATS, for ₹18,000 crore. The amount includes payment of ₹2,700 crore in cash and take over ₹15,300 crore of the carrier’s debt.
As of August 31, Air India had a total debt of ₹61,562 crore. Of the total amount, Talace (a Tata Group company) will take over ₹15,300 crore and the remaining ₹ 46,262 crore will be transferred to AIAHL.
As per the supplementary demands for grants, an additional ₹2,628 crore would be given towards loans and advances to Air India for recoupment of advance from Contingency Fund of India.
The additional fertiliser subsidy includes ₹43,430 crore on account of payment towards indigenous and imported Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) subsidy and ₹15,000 crore towards urea subsidy scheme.
Besides, the Department of Food and Public Distribution would be given an additional ₹ 49,805 crore for meeting expenditure towards various schemes of food storage and warehousing.