Parliamentarians in the Lok Sabha during the Winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi, on December 6, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The government on December 6 sought Parliament’s nod to spend a net additional ₹58,378 crore in the current fiscal ending March 2024, with a large chunk going towards MGNREGA and subsidy on fertiliser.
The gross additional spending sought by the government is over ₹1.29 lakh crore, of which ₹70,968 crore would be matched by savings and receipts.
The net additional spending by the government would be ₹58,378.21 crore in the current fiscal, as per the Supplementary Demands for Grants tabled in Parliament.
The additional expenditure includes ₹13,351 crore towards fertiliser subsidy and about ₹7,000 crore towards spending by the Department of Food and Public Distribution.
The government also sought Parliament approval for an additional ₹9,200 crore spending by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and ₹14,524 crore by the Ministry of Rural Development towards MGNREGA.
The total supplementary demands for spending by the Ministry of External Affairs is ₹20,000 crore, which would be adjusted against the reduction of expenditure of over ₹9,000 crore.
Icra Chief Economist Aditi Nayar said the net cash outgo in the Supplementary Demand for Grants is moderate and could be matched by savings in other departments. “This does not suggest a risk of the fiscal deficit target being overshot,” Nayar said. For the full 2023-24, the government has budgeted the fiscal deficit to be ₹17.86 lakh crore or 5.9% of the GDP. The April-October fiscal deficit was 45.6% of the full-year BE in the last fiscal.