Centre seeks Parliament nod for ₹1.58 lakh cr additional spending

The central government has sought approval of the Parliament for an additional spending of ₹1.58 lakh crore in the current financial year to dole out additional fertilizer subsidy, which has been necessitated on account of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The net outgo stands at ₹1,07,408 crore.

The additional spending also includes servicing loans taken from the National Small Savings Funds (NSSF) for Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, among other heads.

The third and final batch of the supplementary demands for grants for FY22 was tabled in the Lok Sabha by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Supplementary demand for grant is the additional grant over and above the expenditure already approved by the Parliament.

"Approval of the Parliament is sought to authorise gross additional expenditure of Rs 1,58,356 crore. Of this, the proposals involving net cash outgo aggregate to Rs 1,07,408 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the ministries/departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to Rs 50,946.52 crore," said the third supplementary demand for grants.

A total of ₹14,902 crore will be allocated to the ministry of fertilizers for payment towards indigenous urea subsidy and import of urea.

₹8,838 crore has been sought to provide grants towards Covid-19 vaccination. Approval of additional expenditure of ₹30,169 crore was sought for meeting targeted Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) houses for Economically Weaker Section(EWS)/Lower Income Group (LIG) category under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (Urban) and settle the loan taken by Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) from National Small Saving Fund (NSSF).

The government has already sought parliamentary approval for additional gross expenditure of ₹5.5 lakh crore under two previous supplementary demands for grants in this fiscal.