LS passes supplementary demands for grants for additional spending of Rs 54,000 cr

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the second batch of supplementary demands for grants authorising the government to spend an additional Rs 54,000 crore, mainly to meet its obligation towards GST compensation to states and defence-related expenditure.

Capital outlay for defence forces is Rs 7,000 crore, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while replying to the debate on the final batch supplementary demands for grants for 2019-20 in the lower house.

"Additional cash approximately Rs 53,000 crore in the second supplementary demand for grants and approximately Rs 18,000 crore in the first supplementary demand for grants, which was in December 2019 will be well within the revised estimates of 2019-20," she said.

Hence, she said, there will be no requirement for resources over and above the projected total expenditure figure of Rs 26.98 lakh crore.

The final batch had sought authorisation for gross additional expenditure of Rs 4.8 lakh crore.

"Of this, the proposals involving net cash outgo aggregate to Rs 53,963.58 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by saving of the ministries/departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to Rs 4.26-lakh crore," the supplementary demands for grants document had said.

The government sought Rs 20,000 crore for payment of GST compensation to the states. Of this, Rs 16,200 crore has been earmarked for states and remaining Rs 3,800 crore for union territories.

Another Rs 2,908 crore has been sought for payment as share of net proceeds of taxes to union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

The other major expenses for which additional funds have been sought include defence related expenses (Rs 6,988 crore), defence pensions (Rs 5,730 crore), MNREGA (Rs 5,001 crore) and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (Rs 1,003 crore).

As per the revised estimate, the government's total expenditure has been pegged at Rs 26.99 lakh crore and receipts at Rs 19.32 lakh crore.

The government raised fiscal deficit target to 3.8 per cent of the GDP from 3.3 per cent pegged earlier for 2019-20 due to revenue shortage.

The Centre's fiscal deficit rose to Rs 9.85 lakh crore in April-January, which is 128.5 per cent of the revised full-year target of Rs 7.67-lakh crore.