The government on Friday sought Parliament’s nod for an additional Rs 54,000-crore spending, mainly to meet its obligation towards GST compensation to states and defence-related expenditure.
Minister of state for finance Anurag Thakur presented the second and final batch of supplementary demands for grants in the Lok Sabha. It sought authorisation for a 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 savings of the ministries/departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregates to Rs 4.26 lakh crore,” the supplementary demands for grants document said.
The government has sought Rs 20,000 crore to pay GST compensation to the states. Of this, Rs 16,200 crore has been earmarked for states and the remaining Rs 3,800 crore for Union Territories.
The finance ministry had stated that Rs 1,20,498 crore has been paid as GST compensation to the states and Union Territories in the current financial year despite cess collection reaching Rs 78,874 crore till January 31, 2020.
Another Rs 2,908 crore has been sought for payment as the share of net proceeds of taxes to the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
The other major expenses include defence 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).