Centre To Spend Additional Rs 23,675 Crore As 1st Batch Of Supplementary Demands Approved

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the supplementary demands for grants and relevant appropriation bills.

Amid a din, the Lok Sabha on Wednesday approved the first batch of supplementary demands authorising the government to spend an additional Rs 23,675 crore, including Rs 17,000 crore for the health ministry, in the current financial year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the supplementary demands for grants and relevant appropriation bills. As per the first batch of supplementary demands for grants tabled in the Lok Sabha by Sitharaman on July 20, although the gross additional expenditure is over Rs 1.87 lakh crore in 2021-22, the actual cash outgo will only be Rs 23,674.81 crore as the remaining spending will be met through savings and higher receipts and recoveries. A substantial chunk of the total gross spending is towards transfer to states for shortfall in Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation cess. A total of Rs 1.59 lakh crore would be transferred to states as back-to-back loan in lieu of the GST compensation shortfall. However, this will not entail any cash outgo. To meet the various COVID-related and other health preparedness expenditure, Rs 16,463 crore extra spending has been earmarked for the department of health and family welfare. An extra Rs 526 crore has been allocated to the department of health research for emergency epidemic preparedness and response.