Government seeks Parliament nod for additional spending of Rs 66,113 crore

The government today sought Parliament's approval for additional expenditure of Rs 66,113 crore, which includes funds to roll out schemes for providing 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 Rs 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 Rs 33,379.99 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the ministries/departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to Rs 32,732.05 crore," it said.

Major spending heads include Rs 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 Rs 3,594.57 crore was provided to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

As much as Rs 20,532.5 crore was provided for urea freight subsidy, while another Rs 15,908 crore was provided for national highways.

The finance minister also sought Parliament's approval for "token provision" of Rs 1.3 crore -- Rs 1 lakh for each item of expenditure -- for enabling re-appropriation of savings in cases involving 'new service or new instrument of service'.

The government has sought approval for Rs 960 crore towards establishment related expenditure, including payment of advance user charges to GSTN and information technology.

Further, Rs 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 government is seeking Parliament's nod for Rs 3,480.44 crore for providing additional subsidy of interest liability in respect of loan granted to Food Corporation of India from National Small Savings Fund and food subsidy to FCI, among others.