In the midst of continued logjam over proceedings in both the Houses of Parliament, the Centre on Thursday decided to move the Finance Bill, 2023, for consideration and passing in the Lok Sabha.
The Finance Bill 2023 – which was earlier listed for Friday — was brought into Thursday’s list of business through the supplementary list. This would mean that the Government would — when the lower House reconvenes at 6 pm on Thursday — look to complete at one go, the business of all three important aspects of Budget 2023 — approval of outstanding vote on demand for grants of Ministries; Appropriation Bill authorising the withdrawal of funds from Consolidated Fund of India; passage of Finance Bill with amendments to be moved by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
It may be recalled had in this year’s Budget (for 2023-24) the Centre continued its thrust of capex-led growth strategy, bumping up the overall investment outlay by 33 per cent to ₹10-lakh crore over the ₹7.5-lakh crore budgeted in 2022-23.
This would be 3.3 per cent of GDP and will almost be three times the outlay in 2019-20, the Finance Minister had said in her Budget speech, adding that this substantial increase is central to the government’s efforts to enhance growth potential and job creation, crowd in private investments and provide a cushion against global headwinds.
The direct capital investment by the Centre is complemented by the provision made for creation of capital assets through grants-in-aid to States. The ‘effective capital expenditure’ of the Centre is budgeted at ₹13.7-lakh crore, which will be 4.5 per cent of GDP, she had added.
Sitharaman had also, as part of her Budget speech, announced the continuation of support to State governments for capital investment, highlighting that the 50-year interest free loan to States will continue for one more year to spur investment in infrastructure and to incentivise them for complementary policy actions, with a significantly enhanced outlay of ₹1.3-lakh crore.