With supplementary demands worth ₹24,777 crore in the last session of the State legislature before the Assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena government has presented total supplementary demands worth ₹2,05,475 crore in its five-year term.
The percentage of cumulative amount of supplementary demands to the total budget stands at 12.95%, the highest ever. It is also well above the suggested range of 5% to 10% suggested by the guidelines of former bureaucrat Madhav Godbole.
A supplementary demand is an additional grant to meet government expenditure, outside the annual budget. The supplementary demands presented by the government in the monsoon session of the legislature is focused mainly on the Cooperation, Marketing and Textile Department with allotment worth ₹3,808.71 crore, followed by ₹3,651.13 crore for Industries, Power and Labour department. With respect to grants proposed for Municipal Councils and Zilla Parishads, the Urban Development Department and Rural Development Department were allotted funds worth ₹2,205.57 crore and ₹2,340.42 crore respectively.
Among the issue-wise allotments, ₹2,500 crore were allotted for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Scheme (2017), the farm loan waiver scheme. With focus on farmers, ₹387.3 crore provision is made as an assistance to onion producing farmers while ₹320.07 crore is the provision for the ancillary expenditure for purchase of farmers’ produce through Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation Ltd.
According to Samarthan, an organisation which specialises in analysis of the State budget and provision of supplementary demands, neither the present government nor the previous one has managed to keep the percentage of supplementary demands within the limit of 5% to 10%.