Govt seeks Parliament nod for Rs 54,000-cr additional spending

The government on Friday sought Parliament nod for an additional Rs 54,000-crore spending mainly to meet its obligation towards GST compensation to states and defence-related expenditure.

Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur presented the second and final batch of supplementary demands for grants in the Lok Sabha.

It sought authorisation for gross additional expenditure of Rs 4.8 lakh crore.

"Of this, the proposals involving net cash outgo aggregate to Rs 53,963.58 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by saving of the ministries/departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to Rs 4.26 lakh crore," the supplementary demands for grants document said.

The government has sought Rs 20,000 crore for payment of GST compensation to the states. Of this, Rs 16,200 crore has been earmarked for states and remaining Rs 3,800 crore for Union Territories.

Another Rs 2,908 crore has been sought for payment as share of net proceeds of taxes to Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

The other major expenses for which additional funds have been sought include defence related expenses (Rs 6,988 crore), defence pensions (Rs 5,730 crore), MNREGA (Rs 5,001 crore) and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (Rs 1,003 crore).

The second Supplementary Demands for Grants has already been taken into account in the revised estimate for 2019-20.

As per the revised estimate, the government's total expenditure has been pegged at Rs 26.99 lakh crore and receipts at Rs 19.32 lakh crore.

The government raised fiscal deficit target to 3.8 per cent of the GDP from 3.3 per cent pegged earlier for 2019-20 due to revenue shortage.

The government has utilised 'escape clause' under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act which provides it leeway for relaxation of fiscal deficit roadmap during time of stress.

The 'escape clause' allows the government to breach its fiscal deficit target by 0.5 percentage points in times of severe stress in the economy, including periods of structural change and those when growth falls sharply.

The central government's fiscal deficit rose to Rs 9.85 lakh crore in April-January, which is 128.5 per cent of the revised full-year target of Rs 7.67 lakh crore.