Extra Rs 4,888crore cash outgo seen

Supplementary demand for grants seeks Rs 2,300crore for BSNL

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh projected an additional cash expenditure of Rs 4,887.91 crore as part of the government's second supplementary demand for grants of Rs 7,660.21 crore, which was tabled in the Lok Sabha today.

The minister has earmarked Rs 348.63 crore for public sector oil companies Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to clear their dues under the dismantled administered price mechanism.

ONGC will get Rs 257.60 crore while IOC's share is Rs 91.03 crore. The companies will be required to invest the money in Special Government Bonds.

As the transactions will be recorded simultaneously in the government accounts, there will be no cash outgo.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will account for Rs 2,300 crore of the additional cash outgo. The money is meant as budget support for BSNL's operational losses on rural telephony and village public telephones.

Moreover, Rs 147.30 crore is being provided as additional equity in the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, along with Rs 40 crore as land acquisition costs.

In the first batch of supplementary demands for grants, Singh had in July projected a net cash outgo of Rs 5,580 crore.

The finance ministry had estimated the total expenditure of the Centre at Rs 438,795.07 crore in the Budget for 2003-04.

The second batch of supplementaries also provides for Rs 500 crore as additional Ways and Means advances for the states. As these advances are recoverable in the same fiscal, there will be no cash outgo for the Centre.

The finance ministry has made a provision of Rs 43 crore from matching savings to buy new office accommodation for the Central Board of Direct Taxes and the Central Board of Excise and Customs, which will shift out of North Block.

The money will also go into the setting up of the Competition Commission of India and the Pension Regulatory Development Authority.

Another Rs 68.72 crore has been provided as technical supplementary for meeting ex-gratia payments to central government employees under the special voluntary retirement scheme. The increased outgo under this head shows that the scheme has finally taken off.

The finance minister has sought Parliament's approval to write off outstanding dues of Rs 288.84 crore on the lines of credit extended by India to highly-indebted poor countries.

This includes Rs 168.34 crore as the unreconciled portion of commodity loans given to Vietnam. This will not entail any cash outgo either.

Other than BSNL, there will be a major cash outgo of Rs 1,579.75 crore under the special component of the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana and Rs 550 crore for additional expenditure under the nationwide mid-day meal scheme.

Also, Rs 952.10 crore has been provided from savings to the Indian Iron and Steel Company as part of its restructuring package, including writing off its outstanding loans and waiver of interest and penal interest on them.