On 20th July, Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister of India, sought the nod of the Indian Parliament so as to spend an additional Rs 23,675 crore in the current financial year including Rs 17,000 crore for the Health Ministry.
Highlights
- To meet the various issues related to Covid and for other health preparedness, Rs 16,463 crore extra spending has been issued for the health and family welfare department.
- 526 crore has been provided to the health research department so that they can prepare for emergency epidemic preparedness and response.
- Rs 2,050 crore has been approved for the Ministry of Civil Aviation which also includes Rs. 1,872 crore towards advances and loans to Air India.
- Rs 1,100 crore has also been announced for the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution for providing assistance to the sugar mills.
- Approval for spending an additional Rs 1,222 crore under Department of Pharmaceuticals has been sought towards waiver of the government loan of Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and waiver of government loan and accrued interest of Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
- Additional grants have been approved to clear the dues of Rajasthan Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd and Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd.
- The additional spending is well over the total expenditure of ₹34.83 lakh crore which was projected in the Budget for the year 2021-22.
About Ministry of Finance
Formed in the year 1946, the current finance minister of India is Nirmala Sitharaman and Bhagwat Karad and Pankaj Choudhary are the Minister of States of this department.