Union Budget 2019-20: What is a supplementary grant and when is it issued by Parliament

In the budgetary language, a supplementary grant is nothing but additional grant to meet the required expenditure of the government. When grants authorised by the Parliament fall short of the required expenditure, an estimate is presented before the Parliament for supplementary grants. When actual expenditure incurred exceeds the approved grants, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Railways presents a Demand for Excess Grant. In February, the government sought Parliament’s nod for gross additional expenditure of Rs 1,98,831.36 crore for the last fiscal. The third batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants, tabled by the then finance minister Piyush Goyal in the Lok Sabha, said the net cash outgo aggregated to Rs 51,433.28 crore. The government also sought over Rs 4,700 crore for the Ministry of Home Affairs. The second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2018-19 for gross additional expenditure of Rs 85,948.86 crore, which included Rs 41,000 crore for a recap of the Public Sector Banks (PSBs), was passed by voice vote in the Lok Sabha in December 2018. The second batch of supplementary demand was tabled by former finance minister Arun Jaitley on 20 December seeking Parliament’s approval for additional expenditure of Rs 85,948.86 crore. Parliament had approved Rs 2,345 crore equity infusion into the debt-laden national carrier Jet Airways under the second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants 2018-19. Follow full coverage of Union Budget 2019-20 here