Plan expenditure 63% of budget estimate up to December: Government

NEW DELHI: India's plan expenditure was 63 per cent of the Budget Estimate up to December 2011 of the previous fiscal, while non-plan expenditure was 76 per cent of the estimate, the Parliament was informed today.

The actual plan expenditure up to December 2011 of 2011-12 stood at Rs 2.77 lakh crore, as against the Budget Estimate (BE) of Rs 4.42 lakh crore, the Minister of State for Planning Ashwani Kumar informed the Lok Sabha.

The plan expenditure included both central plan and central assistance to the states and union territories (UTs).

The non-plan expenditure up to December 2011 was Rs 6.19 lakh crore, as against the BE of Rs 8.16 lakh crore for the entire fiscal, which is 76 per cent of the estimate, Kumar said.

The non-plan expenditure were incurred towards interest payments, defence, grants and loans to states and UTs, subsidies, pension and some other heads.

Till December 2011, the fiscal deficit was estimated at Rs 4.13 lakh crore, 4.6 per cent of the GDP for 2011-12 budget estimate, Kumar said.

"As against this, the fiscal deficit up to December 2011 amounted to Rs 3.81 lakh crore which was 4.24 per cent of the GDP. Thus the fiscal deficit up to December was less by 0.36 per cent than budget estimate. However, eventually the fiscal deficit increased to 5.9 per cent of the GDP for the entire financial year 2011-12 (revised estimate)," the minister said.