RS passes Appropriation Bills

Rajya Sabha today approved an additional Rs 56,256.32 crore of supplementary demands for grants to government, which is mainly for defence pension and Swachh Bharat mission.
The House passed Appropriation Bills Nos. 4 and 5 by a voice vote without debate, after these were moved by Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha and returned them to Lok Sabha which has already given its nod to them.
The net cash outgo will aggregate to only Rs 18,195.4 crore, while the rest of the amount would be matched by savings and enhanced recoveries.
Proposals involving net cash outgo aggregate to Rs 18,195.4 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the Ministries/Departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to Rs 38,059.78 crore, as per the demands.

The supplementary demands have also earmarked an additional Rs 5,735.4 crore for "meeting expenditure towards increased rate of relief on pensions and growth in pensions" for retired defence personnel.
The demands include Rs 2,169 crore towards Swachh Bharat Mission, Rs 3,000 crore towards Pradhan Mantari Gramin Sadak Yojna, and Rs 2,500 crore towards irrigation scheme.

They also include an additional Rs 952 crore towards loan to Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd and Rs 344 crore for financial relief to ITI Ltd.
It also has provision for an additional Rs 300 crore for Polavaram Irrigation Project in terms of support under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.

The technical supplementary demands for grants include Rs 10,000 crore for providing 'Ways and Means Advances' to Food Corporation of India to meet cash flow requirements towards procurement of food grains for targeted public distribution system.
These also include Rs 5,528.56 crore for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Rs 1,000 crore for Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Rs 8,968.4 crore for Ministry of Rural Development.