The Hindu Business Line : Rs 10,000 crore for farmers’ debt relief fund

A sum of Rs 10,000 crore out of the Rs 60,000 crore farm loan waiver announced in the Union Budget 2008-09 has been included in the third and final batch of supplementary demands for grants for the current fiscal. The Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, tabled the additional expenditure proposals in the Lok Sabha here on Wednesday.

The Rs 10,000 crore would be utilised for the creation of “farmers debt relief fund” towards the debt waiver and debt relief scheme for farmers to cover all agricultural loans disbursed by scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperative credit institutions up to March 31, 2007 and remained unpaid till February 29, 2008.

The third and final batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants is for a massive additional expenditure of Rs 1,40,378.91 crore, including a net cash outgo of Rs 43,059.92 crore, in the current fiscal.

The balance expenditure of about Rs 97,318.16 crore of the supplementary demands is to be matched by the savings from enhanced receipts/recoveries of the Ministries/departments.

net cash outgo

The net cash outgo of Rs 43,059.92 crore includes Rs 10,000 crore for creation of ‘farmers debt relief fund’, Rs 8,476 crore for interest on market stabilisation scheme (MSS) bonds and other market loans, Rs 5,824 crore for foodgrain subsidy, Rs 3,586.70 crore for certain fertiliser subsidies, Rs 5,923 crore for initiatives on social and infrastructure development, Rs 880 crore for NREG/Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana and Rs 537 crore for compensation to States for revenue loss on VAT implementation and phase out of the Central Sales Tax.

Of the total net cash outgo of Rs 43,059.92 crore, the Plan expenditure stood at only Rs 5,581.09 crore and the balance Rs 37,478.83 crore was non-Plan expenditure.

SBI rights, oil bonds

The proposals for technical supplementary grants/appropriations for Rs 97,318.16 crore include Rs 10,000 crore for subscribing to the rights issue of equity shares of State Bank of India (SBI), Rs 9,076.41 crore as special oil bonds to be issued to oil marketing companies for compensating them for their under-recoveries on account of sale of sensitive petroleum products and Rs 62,573.17 crore for repayment of various debt.

More Stories on : Farm credit | Budget

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page