What is Contingency Fund?

Article 267 of the Constitution authorises the existence of a Contingency Fund of India, which is an imprest (corpus) placed at the disposal of the President of India to facilitate meeting of urgent unforeseen expenditure by the government, pending an authorisation from Parliament.

Parliamentary approval for such unforeseen expenditure is obtained, ex- post-facto, and an equivalent amount is drawn from the Consolidated Fund of India to recoup the Contingency Fund after such ex-post-facto approval. The corpus of the Contingency Fund, as authorised by Parliament, stands at Rs 500 crore at present.