As part of over ₹3.73 lakh crore additional spending planned in the current financial year, the government today sought the Parliament's approval to infuse over ₹62,000 crores into the company that holds residual assets and liabilities of Air India after its privatization.
The spending will include ₹58,430 crores as additional fertilizer subsidy, ₹53,123 crores for pending export incentives, and ₹22,039 crores to the rural development ministry for transfer to National Rural Employment Guarantee Fund.
Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State for Finance, tabled the second batch of supplementary demands for grants in the Lok Sabha envisaging a net cash outgo of over ₹2.99 lakh crore and ₹74,517 crore extra expenditure would be matched by savings by different ministries.
Reportedly, ₹62,057 crores would be given to the Civil Aviation Ministry for equity infusion in Air India Assets Holding Company (AIAHL) for the repayment of past guaranteed borrowing of the government and past dues/liabilities of Air India, the document read.
Apart from that, another ₹2,628 crores would be given towards loans and advances to Air India for recouping of advance from the Contingency Fund of India.
Fertiliser subsidy includes ₹43,430 crores on account of payment towards indigenous and imported Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) Subsidy and ₹15,000 crores towards urea subsidy scheme.
The Department of Food and Public Distribution would be given an additional ₹49,805 crores for meeting expenditure towards various schemes of food storage and warehousing.
Among others, approximately another ₹2,400 crores would be given to the Department of Commerce for meeting expenditure towards subsidies under the "Interest Equalisation Scheme", and Investment under the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) scheme.
Apart from that, another ₹5,000 crores for the Defence ministry and ₹4,000 crores for the Home ministry respectively has been earmarked.
Notably, the total expenditure of the government was projected at ₹34.83 lakh crore for the 2021-22 Budget. Considering the two separate batches of supplementary demands for grants from the government, the budget is now expected to go past the projection. It is worth mentioning that the government had in August received the Parliament's approval for additional spending of ₹23,675 crores.
