The government has sought Parliament’s approval to spend a net additional Rs 33,380 crore ($ 5.21 billion) in new spending in the fiscal year to March 2018. The additional spending will be on top of an approved spending of Rs 21.4 lakh crore in the annual budget. As per a finance ministry statement the government has sought Parliament’s nod for gross additional spending of Rs 66,113 crore in 2017-18, but given the savings by ministries and enhanced receipts aggregating to Rs 32,732.05 crore, the Centre’s net cash outgo would be only Rs 33,379.99 crore.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley moving the second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2017-18 in Lok Sabha also sought Parliament’s approval for “token provision” of Rs 1.3 crore - Rs 1 lakh for each item of expenditure - for enabling re-appropriation of savings in cases involving ‘new service or new instrument of service’. The government has sought approval for Rs 960 crore towards establishment related expenditure, including payment of advance user charges to Goods and Services Tax Network and information technology.
The new spending proposal includes Rs 20,532 crore for the fertiliser sector to clear liabilities towards urea freight subsidy and writing off the loan and waiver of interest in respect of three fertiliser PSUs. The other major spending heads include Rs 15,908 crore towards roads and highways sector and Rs 8,394 crore for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, while Rs 5,198 crore extra provided for immunisation programme. It also includes Rs 1,033.8 crore towards grants for creation of capital assets, subsidies and other charges for Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya). As much as Rs 5,905 crore was provided to meet Seventh Pay Commission induced salary increase. The additional spending will also include Rs 10 lakh for setting up a special purpose vehicle (SPV), as part of the Air India disinvestment plan.