Parliament nod for additional spending in FY24, CGST Bill
New Delhi: The Parliament on Tuesday greenlit the government’s proposal for an additional spending of ₹58,378 crore in FY24. A significant portion of it will go towards fertilizer subsidies and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA).
On 6 December, minister of state for finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, presented the first set of additional spending requests seeking the Parliament’s approval on behalf of the Centre. Parliament has allowed total additional expenditure of ₹1.29 trillion for FY24. Furthermore, approval was granted for an expenditure of ₹70,968 crore, which will be covered by increased receipts and savings under different heads. Last week, Lok Sabha passed the supplementary demands for grants, and forwarded it to Rajya Sabha. The Upper House of Indian parliament returned the appropriation bills to the Lok Sabha after a brief discussion on Tuesday. The Narendra Modi-led government said it will be spending an additional ₹13,351 crore on fertilizer subsidies and ₹14,524 crore on MGNREGA. For the FY24 budget, the Centre allocated ₹1.75 trillion for fertilizer subsidy after a record ₹2.55 trillion were spent on it during FY23.
In September, the Centre said it would borrow ₹6.55 trillion for the second half of FY24 or 42.45% of its gross market borrowing of ₹15.43 trillion for the ongoing financial year, leaving its borrowing plans unchanged for the fiscal. So far, the Centre maintained that it will meet FY24’s fiscal deficit target,of 5.9% of gross domestic product, comfortably due to robust tax collections, higher non-tax revenues, including dividends from the Reserve Bank of India and state-run banks, which will offset any revenue shortfall from disinvestments. The government’s fiscal deficit during the first seven months of the financial year stood at ₹8.03 trillion, or 45% of annual estimates of ₹17.87 trillion, according to data released by the Controller General of Accounts.
Meanwhile, Central Goods and Services Tax (Second Amendment) Bill, 2023 and the Provisional Collection of Taxes Bill, 2023 were passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday through voice vote. The CGST Bill, 2023 seeks to raise age limits for the president and members of GSTAT from 67 and 65 years, respectively, to 70 years.
Interestingly, several opposition MPs were suspended from the parliament on Tuesday for disrupting parliamentary proceedings.
While some MPs have been suspended for the remainder of the session, others await a report by the privileges committee on their conduct in the House.
The Central GST (Second Amendment) Bill, 2023, also seeks to expand the pool of candidates for appointment as judicial members to the tribunals to include advocates with a decade of experience and substantial experience in litigation matters relating to indirect taxes in various tribunals and courts.
“The reason why this amendment is coming through is that it was brought to the notice of the ministry by the honourable chief justices of India in his administrative side through the registrar of the court that the following aspects of the service terms were not on consonance with the provision of tribunal act of 2021,” finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the Lok Sabha during the passage of the bill.
Meanwhile, the Provisional Collection of Taxes Bill, 2023 gives provisions in bills relating to the imposition or increase of duties of customs or excise, with or without change in tariff classification.
This bill allows the government to give immediate effect to customs and excise duty changes proposed in the finance bills from the next day onwards without having to wait for the bill’s passage.
The Provisional Collection of Taxes Bill, 2023 proposes to replace the erstwhile Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1931.
Source from: https://www.livemint.com/news/parliament-nod-for-additional-spending-in-fy24-cgst-bill-11703005005222.html