India requested parliamentary approval Friday to increase its net spending by 3.26 trillion rupees ($40billion) in the current fiscal year. This was due to an increase in fertiliser and food subsidy expenditures during the conflict with Ukraine.
After previously estimating total spending for the year at 39.45 Trillion rupees (480.5 Billion), parliament was told by the government that it wanted approval to gross extra expenditure of 4.36 Trillion rupees.
India imports as much as 40% of its 50 million tonnes annually of fertilizer. This year, prices rose after Russia invaded Ukraine. India is an important fertiliser producer.
According to the Parliament document, India wanted to spend 1.09 trillion rupees more on fertilizer subsidies. The total amount spent on such subsidies will be 2.14 trillion dollars in 2022/23.
To insure farmers against high costs and inflation, the federal government offers financial assistance for domestic fertilizer sales at lower rates than the market.
The document indicated that approval was also sought for 601.1 billion rupees to be spent on food subsidies.
In 2022/23 the total food subsidy expenditures would reach 2.67 trillion Rupees, which is an increase of 2.07 trillion rupees from the budget estimate.
In 2022/23, the government wants to invest an additional 164 million rupees in a scheme for rural employment guarantee. The total expenditure on the scheme would be 894 billion rupees.
The Indian government requested an additional 284.22 million rupees to increase spending on rural housing.
