Govt seeks Parliament nod to spend additional Rs 56,256 cr

The government today sought Parliament approval for an additional Rs 56,256.32 crore mainly towards defence pension and Swachh Bharat mission in the second batch of supplementary demands as part of grants for 2015-16 to meet the expenditure.
However, the net cash outgo will aggregate to only Rs 18,195.4 crore, while the rest of the amount would be matched by savings and enhanced recoveries.
The second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants 2015-16 was tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
"Proposals involving net cash outgo aggregate to Rs 18,195.4 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the Ministries/Departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to Rs 38,059.78 crore", the supplementary demands said.

The supplementary demands have also earmarked an additional Rs 5,735.4 crore for "meeting expenditure towards increased rate of relief on pensions and growth in pensions" for retired defence personnel.
Government has sought an additional Rs 196.28 crore for clearing pending claims for maintenance of Prime Minister's aircraft, pending bills on account of foreign travel expenses of Cabinet ministers and secret service expenditure of National Security Council Secretariat.

The demands include Rs 2,169 crore towards Swachh Bharat Mission, Rs 3,000 crore towards Pradhan Mantari Gramin Sadak Yojna, and Rs 2,500 crore towards irrigation scheme.
Jaitley also sought an additional Rs 952 crore towards loan to Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd and Rs 344 crore for financial relief to ITI Ltd.

The second batch of the demands for grants includes
proposals for "technical supplementary grants/appropriations' for Rs 38,059.78 crore which are matched by additional receipts/recoveries or corresponding savings of Ministers/ Departments.
The technical supplementary demands for grants include Rs 10,000 crore for providing 'Ways and Means Advances' to Food Corporation of India to meet cash flow requirements towards procurement of food grains for targeted public distribution system.
The technical supplementary demands also include Rs 5,528.56 crore for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Rs 1,000 crore for Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Rs 8,968.4 crore for Ministry of Rural Development.

Besides, token provision of Rs 1.14 crore has also been sought, Rs 1 lakh each item of expenditure, for enabling re- appropriation of savings in cases involving new services or new instrument of services.