The Centre sought Parliament’s approval on Friday to increase the FY16 Budget spending by R18,195 crore, with a large part earmarked for the creation of capital assets, which officials said won’t hurt the fiscal consolidation plan.
This is the second supplementary demand for grants after the Centre got a R25,500 additional spending nod in August. Officials said the additional spending won’t result in wider fiscal deficit.
The full-year budgeted spending is estimated at R17.7 lakh crore, up 8% over the actuals last fiscal. In recent years, the Budget sizes turned out to be less than what was envisaged in the Budgets, as the government overestimated revenue growth and had to cut down expenditure to keep the fiscal targets.