Money bills such as supplementary demand for grants are considered approved by the Parliament irrespective of their outcome in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House.
Written by FE Bureau
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday gave its approval to the government to spend a net additional Rs 1.48 trillion without any debate due to ruckus by the opposition parties in the House.
Money bills such as supplementary demand for grants are considered approved by the Parliament irrespective of their outcome in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House.
An extra Rs 29,656 crore on fertiliser subsidy for FY23 over the revised estimate is a key component of the fresh demands. After the additional allocation, the spending on fertiliser subsidy would rise to about Rs 2.55 trillion in FY23 as against the budget estimate of Rs 1.05 trillion and the revised estimate (RE) of Rs 2.25 trillion.
The second batch of supplementary demands or ‘Appropriation Bill (No 2), 2023,’ was passed without discussion amid continuous uproar by the Opposition demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the allegations against the Adani Group of companies.
According to the supplementary grants, the government has been authorised to make additional transfers to the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore.
Among other major heads, the government additional spending is to the tune of Rs 33,718 crore to meet the extra expenditure for provision for on account of regular pension and enhanced One Rank One Pension (OROP) rates for two months i.e. for January 2023 and February 2023. The arrears component of OROP is Rs 24,465.57 crore for the Army, Rs 1,322 crore for the Navy and Rs 2,350 crore for the Air Force.
The net cash outgo under the supplementary demand for grants is dominated by fertiliser subsidy, defence pensions, the telecom sector and GST compensation, together accounting for 73% of the total amount. In the supplementary demand, the Centre has provided an amount of Rs 33,506 crore towards goods and services tax (GST) compensation release to states.
Source:financialexpress.com