Govt seeks Parliament nod for Rs 3.73 trn additional spending this fiscal

Govt seeks Par nod for Rs 62k cr infusion into the company that holds residual assets and liabilities of Air India after its privatisation as part of extra spending

The government on Friday sought Parliament's nod for gross additional spending of over Rs 3.73 lakh crore in the current financial year.

As per the second batch of supplementary demands for grants tabled in Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, the net cash outgo would be over Rs 2.99 lakh crore and Rs 74,517 crore extra expenditure would be matched by savings by different ministries.

The amount includes extra spending of Rs 58,430 crore towards fertiliser subsidy, over Rs 2,000 crore towards various schemes of Department of Commerce and over Rs 53,000 crore by Department of Expenditure under various export promotion schemes.

The Government on Friday sought Parliament's nod to infuse over Rs 62,000 crore into the company that holds residual assets and liabilities of Air India after its privatisation, as part of over Rs 3.73 lakh crore additional spending planned in the current financial year.

The extra spending would include Rs 53,123 crore towards payment of pending export incentives and Rs 22,039 crore to rural development ministry for transfer to National Rural Employment Guarantee Fund.

As per the document, Rs 62,057 crore would be given to the Civil Aviation Ministry for equity infusion in Air India Assets Holding Company (AIAHL) for re-payment of past government guaranteed borrowing and past dues/liabilities of Air India.

Besides, an additional Rs 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 include Rs 43,430 crore on account of payment towards indigenous and imported Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) Subsidy and Rs 15,000 crore towards urea subsidy scheme.

Besides, the Department of Food and Public Distribution would be given an additional Rs 49,805 crore for meeting expenditure towards various schemes of food storage and warehousing.

About Rs 2,400 crore would be given to Department of Commerce for meeting expenditure towards subsidies under the 'Interest Equalisation Scheme', and Investment under the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) scheme, among others.

Another over Rs 5,000 crore and over Rs 4,000 crore has been earmarked for additional spending by the Ministries of Defence and Home, respectively.

The 2021-22 Budget had projected government's total expenditure at Rs 34.83 lakh crore. But this is expected to overshoot considering the two batches of supplementary demands for grants presented by the government so far.

The government had in August received Parliament nod for net additional spending Rs 23,675 crore in the first batch of supplementary demands for grants.