Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday sought Parliament's approval for additional cash outgo of Rs 4.12 trillion, one of the highest ever in the second supplementary demand for grants in a financial year.
The cash request is part of the total gross additional spending, pegged at Rs 6.28 trillion, after accounting for Rs 2.15 trillion of savings or reallocation from ministries with under-utilised funds.
However, the provision for this gross additional spending was already being made in the revised estimates of the Union Budget announced on February 1.
Of the total cash outgo, Rs 64,598 crore is towards enhanced expenditure fertiliser subsidy under AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 and Rs 20,466 crore for capital outlay for defence services have been sought.
Sources said that the reason for higher cash demand is on account of stimulus packages announced amid pandemic. Secondly, there were only two demands for grants in this fiscal, instead of three, due to scrapping of the winter session.
To maximise the investments in roads and transport, additional expenses of Rs 5,030 crore have been sought owing to investment in National Highway Authority, Bharat Mala Pariyojna etc. Another Rs 4,970 crore was sought towards major development in the road development programs. While cash outgo of Rs 3,457 crore was also made towards Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program.
To augment the health infrastructure to combat Covid-19 pandemic in the country, the government has sought Rs 1,497 crore for meeting additional expenditure towards Grants-in-aid General under various schemes including Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana.
After the presentation of the Budget and during the remaining parts of the financial year, the Finance Ministry moves ‘Supplementary Demands for Grants’ in Parliament. Basically, it comprises proposals related to additional expenditure over and above what is prescribed in the Budget. This additional expenditure is met through two means — net cash outgo or cash supplementary and savings of various Ministries/ Departments or technical supplementary. Cash supplements require the government to go for new means or better use of means.
“Approval of the Parliament is sought to authorise gross additional expenditure of '6,28,379.99 crore. Of this, the proposals involving net cash outgo aggregate to '4,12,653.48 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the ministries/departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to '2,15,725 crore. Besides, token provision of '151 lakh is being sought, one lakh for each item of expenditure, for enabling re-appropriation of savings in cases involving new service, said the second Demands for Grants which includes 79 grants and 2 appropriations.
In the first batch of the current fiscal, the government has sought parliament’s nod for Rs 2.36 lakh crore of additional gross expenditure of which Rs 1.67 lakh crore was net cash outgo.
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