FY22 Budget provided capital outlay of Rs 5.54 lakh cr, 34.5% higher than FY21: Govt

The Ministry of Finance on Monday informed that to initiate infrastructure development to boost the COVID-19-battered economy, the Union Budget 2021-22 has provided a capital outlay of Rs. 5.54 lakh crore, an increase of 34.5 per cent over Budget Estimate of FY20-21. This was stated by Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Chaudhary stated that the government has also made provision of more than Rs 2 lakh crore for states and autonomous bodies towards their capital expenditure. He added that the National Monetization Pipeline was also prepared "to unlock the value of investments in public sector assets by tapping private capital and efficiencies for delivering infrastructure services."
 
These proceeds are envisaged to augment existing/ create greenfield infrastructure. Additionally, Central Ministries/Departments have been suggested to expedite infrastructure investment by front-loading capital expenditure, the minister stated.

Giving more details, Chaudhary said that the CCEA, in its meetings held in October, approved the proposal for development of ‘PM GatiShakti National Master Plan (NMP)' for providing multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones. "It aims to depict various economic zones and the infrastructure linkages to holistically integrate all the multimodal connectivity projects, remove missing gaps for seamless movement of people, goods & services, minimize disruptions, improve logistics efficiency," he added.

In response to the source of funding, the minister stated that there is no financial implication for multimodal connectivity infrastructure to the economic zones under the PM GatiShakti NMP as the concerned line Ministries/Departments will seek funding of their respective infrastructure projects serving the economic zones as per procedures laid under their respective schemes or programmes.

Giving more details, the minister stated that the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) was launched with projected infrastructure investment of around Rs 111 lakh crore during FY20-25 to provide world-class infrastructure across the country, and improve the quality of life for all citizens. 

NIP was launched with 6,835 projects, which has expanded to over 9,000 projects covering 34 sub-sectors. NIP is a first-of-its-kind, whole-of-government exercise and covers all infrastructure sub-sectors, including MSMEs working in infrastructure sector, as mentioned in Harmonized Master List of Infrastructure Sub-sectors notified by Department of Economic Affairs (DEA).