The finance ministry has estimated initial savings of Rs 5,000 crore for this fiscal on its expenditure target.
The ministrys revised estimates meetings with the central ministries, to be kicked off by October 31, will give North Block an idea of the extent of divergence in expenditure from the budget estimates in the different ministries.
The largest chunk of savings, around Rs 3,000 crore, is expected from the defence budget. In the last fiscal, there were savings of Rs 5,000 crore under this head.
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For 2002-03, the government had put the defence budget at Rs 65,000 crore, excluding civil estimates.
This marked an increase of Rs 8,000 crore from the revised estimate of Rs 57,000 crore for 2001-02.
The ministry also expects a savings of Rs 1,200 crore on account of lower compensation to the petroleum ministry for oil companies dues on their sales-tax liability, as part of the petroleum subsidy.
The government had earmarked Rs 1,530.49 crore to meet the under-recovery of oil companies on account of sales-tax payment on aviation fuel to foreign airlines.
However, since aviation turbine fuel was deregulated from April 1, 2001, oil companies have made good on the under-recovery from earlier years.
According to government officials, the present bill will not exceed Rs 400 crore, inclusive of liabilities of the current fiscal and the last.
On the interest front, while the lowered rates led to savings of Rs 5,043 crore in the last fiscal, the Centre is less sanguine about the savings this time, because the rate cut has been less dramatic.
Besides, if the informal freeze on release of dearness allowance for its employees and pensioners continues, the Centre will save another Rs 700 crore.
For 2002-03, the Centre has made a provision of Rs 15,035 crore for pension and Rs 30,322 crore for wages and salaries. This will include about Rs 10,000 crore burden for dearness allowance.
On Plan expenditure, while there is always some savings, the additional expenditure for drought management will more than make up for it.