Govt seeks House nod for ₹51,400 cr extra spending

The amount will mainly be used for fertilizer, food and cooking gas subsidy, defence pension

- Gireesh Chandra Prasad

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday sought Parliament's approval for a net additional spending of ₹51,463 crore in FY25 to meet funding requirements of mainly fertilizer, food and cooking gas subsidy and defence pension.

The government also sought House approval for an extra ₹6.27 trillion spending mainly for repayment of debt, which does not involve additional cash outgo as it is met through savings and additional revenue receipts, showed the second supplementary demands for grants tabled in Parliament.

The document shows that only about 8% of the gross additional spending for which House approval is sought entails extra cash outgo.

Of this, ₹14,100 crore will go to the fertilizer subsidy, ₹18,400 crore for defence pensions, ₹13,400 crore to other pension requirements, ₹5,300 crore to the telecom sector and over ₹2,100 crore to the farm sector.

The petroleum sector will get an additional ₹1,000 crore, including for cooking gas subsidy for poor households.