Govt seeks nod for additional spending of Rs 49,715 cr on subsidies

The government has sought Parliament's approval to spend an additional Rs 49,715.54 crore, mainly to meet the outgo on fuel, fertiliser and food subsidies in the current financial year.

According to the Supplementary Demands for Grants tabled in Lok Sabha by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, the net cash outgo will be only Rs 40,967.27 crore.

The Supplementary Demands for Grants was also tabled in Rajya Sabha.

"Approval of the Parliament is sought to authorise gross additional expenditure of Rs 49,715.54 crore. Of this, the proposals involving net cash outgo aggregate to Rs 40,967.27 crore and gross additional expenditure, matched by savings of the Ministries/Departments or by enhanced receipts/recoveries aggregate to Rs 8,747.29 crore," the document said.

The second and final batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2012-13 includes 65 grants and one appropriation. Of the total amount, Rs 9,914.06 crore and Rs 4,753.99 crore have been sought for food and fertiliser subsidies respectively.

Parliament's nod was also sought for spending Rs 24,773.75 crore for providing compensation towards estimated under recoveries to oil marketing companies on account of sale of petroleum products and subsidy to them for supply of natural gas to north eastern region has also been sought.

Besides, a token provision of Rs 98 lakh was sought - Rs 1 lakh for each item of expenditure - for enabling re-appropriation of savings in cases involving new services or new instruments of service.

With inputs from PTI