New Delhi: India’s capital expenditure – which is money spent to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets – during 2022-23 has been stepped up sharply by 35.4 per cent from Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the current year to Rs 7.50 lakh crore in 2022-23. This has increased to more than 2.2 times the expenditure of 2019-20. This outlay in 2022-23 will be 2.9 per cent of GDP, said Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament on Tuesday.
With the capital expenditure taken together with provision made for creation of capital assets through grants-in-aid to states, the ‘effective capital expenditure’ of the Central government is estimated at Rs 10.68 lakh crore in 2022-23, which will be 4.1 per cent of GDP, informed the Minister. The total expenditure in 2022-23 is estimated at Rs 39.45 lakh crore, while the total receipts other than borrowings are estimated at Rs 22.84 lakh crore.
She further added that as against a total expenditure of Rs 34.83 lakh crore projected in the Budget Estimates 2021-22, the Revised Estimate is Rs 37.70 lakh crore. “The fiscal deficit in 2022-23 is estimated at 6.4 per cent of GDP, which is consistent with the broad path of fiscal consolidation announced by me last year to reach a fiscal deficit level below 4.5 per cent by 2025-26,” said Sitharaman. The revised fiscal deficit in the current year is estimated at 6.9 per cent of GDP as against 6.8 per cent projected in the Budget Estimates.
The Finance Minister stated that while setting the fiscal deficit level in 2022-23, she has been conscious of the need to nurture growth, through public investment, to become stronger and sustainable. The fiscal deficit of the government for 2022-23 is estimated to be Rs 16, 61,196 crore. The revised estimates for 2021-22 indicate a fiscal deficit of Rs 15, 91,089 crore as against the budget estimates of Rs 15, 06,812 crore.
The total market borrowings of the government for 2022-23 are estimated to stand at Rs 11,58,719 crore. The revised estimates for the same for 2021-22 are Rs 8,75,771 crore as against the Budget Estimates of Rs 9, 67,708 crore.
She said that skilling programmes and partnership with the industry will be reoriented to promote continuous skilling avenues, sustainability, and employability. The National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) will be aligned with dynamic industry needs.
Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood – the DESH-Stack e-portal – will be launched. This portal aims to empower citizens to skill, reskill or upskill through on-line training. It will also provide API-based trusted skill credentials, payment and discovery layers to find relevant jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities. /BI/
