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• The Planning Commission has proposed a gross budgetary support (GBS) of Rs 5,21,000 crore as the plan expenditure for the financial year 2012-13, giving a clear signal of resource constraints and slowing economy. This is an increase of just 17.9 per cent over the current GBS of Rs 4,41,547 crore, while the current GBS was an 18.3 per cent rise from the previous fiscal of Rs 3,73,092 in 2010-11.A senior plan panel official told The Pioneer that the commission had cut out the GBS giving an average increase of 18 per cent in the budgetary support to the Central Ministries. The official added that the GBS had been endorsed by all Ministries, barring Railways and Information Technology and Communications (IT) Ministries. The Railways has sought 200 per cent increase in plan allocation to fund its modernisation and renewal plan. The Government had committed Rs 63,635 crore budgetary support to it in the current fiscal year.
• The IT Ministry too has demanded more funds for laying the dedicated optic fibre network for the Defence Ministry. The Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure had approved a Budget of Rs 9,175.16 crore in 2009 for Defence network for the release of spectrum. The Department of Telecom had given this mandate to BSNL which is finding it difficult to undertake the project because of the sharp escalation in costs.The Finance Ministry is in a tight spot this year due to subdued revenue and a rising subsidy bill, and increasing fiscal deficit to an uncomfortable level. The subsidy bill is likely to cross BE by Rs 1 lakh crore, over and above the original estimate of Rs 1.34 lakh crore. The increase is mainly on account of higher outlay towards fertiliser, food and oil.
• It has been able to mop up Rs 6.63 lakh crore as net tax collection until January and will not be able to achieve the Rs 9.32 lakh crore target for the current fiscal. Besides revenue collection, poor receipts from disinvestment have also left a huge gap in balancing the budgetary figures. The Government has managed to raise only about Rs 1,145 crore from disinvestment against the target of Rs 40,000 crore.Last year, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had targeted to bring down fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011-12,  from 4.7 per cent in the previous year. This, however, is expected to be near 5.5 per cent.
• Experts feel that lower GBS this year will add further pressure to the already slowing economy and is not in sync with the cumulative targeted growth of 9 per cent in the 12th five year plan (2012-17).The economy is expected to grow by 6.9 per cent in the current year as against the original estimate of 9 per cent. It grew by 8.4 per cent in 2010-11.

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