Written by: Express News Service
2 min readNew DelhiAug 24, 2013 03:12 AM IST
First published on: Aug 24, 2013 at 03:12 AM IST
Conscious of its strained finances,the finance ministry on Friday tabled the first supplementary demand for grants seeking an additional Rs 7,500 crore that would include expenditure to set up an all-womens bank and the proposed Nirbhaya Fund.
But the net cash outgo has been limited at a mere Rs 127.14 crore with the balance to be met through internal savings in other schemes to ensure that the fiscal deficit target of 4.8 per cent in 2013-14 is not breached. Gross additional expenditure,matched by savings of the ministries and departments or by enhanced receipts and recoveries aggregates to Rs 7,372.55 crore, according to the statement of supplementary demands for grants tabled in Lok Sabha by finance minister P Chidambaram.
However,the government has refrained from seeking additional funds for oil subsidy despite oil marketing companies reporting an under-recovery of Rs 25,579 crore in the first quarter of 2013-14 on diesel,PDS kerosene and cooking gas. We will take a call later in the year and seek the additional funds in the winter session, said a senior finance ministry official.
The government has about Rs 20,000 crore left for payment of the oil subsidy this fiscal after paying the spillover from the last fiscals oil subsidy.
The major spending items that have been covered by the first demand for grants include Rs 1,8,30 crore as Indias contribution towards the International Monetary Fund while Rs 1,000 crore each has been sought as initial capital for the proposed womens bank and also for setting up the Nirbhaya Fund for safety of women.
Meanwhile,the government has also sought an additional Rs 1,000 crore for the National Skill Development Corporation to extend skill trainings to youth.
Also,Rs 100 crore each has been provided as grants to Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University while Rs 200 crore has been provisioned for Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan.
As reported earlier,the finance ministry was keen to either go in for a technical demand for grants or seek a nominal amount as it did not want to increase its spending.
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