Page 445 - ES 2020-21_Volume-1-2 [28-01-21]

72 Economic Survey 2020-21 Volume 2

Trends in Expenditure
2.31 On the expenditure front, Budget 2020-21 estimated total expenditure at ` 30.42 lakh
crore, comprising revenue expenditure of ` 26.3 lakh crore and capital expenditure of ` 4.12
lakh crore, which work out to be 11.7 per cent and 1.7 per cent of GDP, respectively. As a
percentage of GDP, the anticipated growth of total expenditure in 2020-21 BE over 2019-20 PA
is 0.3 per cent of GDP with growth equivalent to 0.15 per cent of GDP each in both Revenue and
capital expenditure.
2.32 Revenue Expenditure, which constitutes over 87 per cent of the total expenditure was
envisaged to grow at 11.9 per cent in 2020-21 BE over 2019-20 PA. This is a modest growth
rate relative to the 17 per cent growth of revenue expenditure in 2019-20 PA over 2018-19.
Interest payments (26 per cent), Defence Revenue expenditure (9 per cent), Major Subsidies
(10 per cent), Grants-in-aid to States/UTs (22 per cent) and Pension (8 per cent) are the
major items of revenue Expenditure which together accounted for nearly 65% of the total
expenditure, as per 2019-20 PA (Table 8). Several initiatives undertaken by the Ministry of
Defence for utilization of defence expenditure and improving efficiency, promoting self-
reliance, and encouraging private sector participation in the defence sector may be seen at
Annex 3.
Table 8 : Major Items of Revenue Expenditure

2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21
Items PA BE
(in ` Lakh crore)

Revenue Expenditure of
which 15.38 16.91 18.79 20.07 23.50 26.30

(4.8) (9.9) (11.1) (6.8) (17.0) (11.9)
a. Salaries (pay &
allowances) 1.45 1.77 1.94 2.11 2.38 2.48
(7.9) (22.6) (9.2) (9.0) (12.7) (4.0)
b. Pensions 0.97 1.31 1.46 1.60 1.84 2.12
(3.4) (35.8) (10.9) (9.9) (14.6) (15.3)
c. Interest payment 4.42 4.81 5.29 5.83 6.11 7.08
(9.7) (8.8) (10.0) (10.2) (4.9) (15.9)
d. Major subsidies 2.42 2.04 1.91 1.97 2.23 2.28
(-2.9) (-15.6) (-6.3) (2.9) (13.4) (2.1)
e. Defence Services 1.46 1.65 1.86 1.96 2.08 2.09

(3.9) (13.3) (12.5) (5.1) (6.1) (0.9)
Source: Union Budget Documents & CGA
BE: Budget Estimate, PA: Provisional Actuals
Numbers in parenthesis are growth rates
*The figure for Salaries (Pay & allowances) for 2019-20 is Revised Estimate (RE).

2.33 A significant proportion of revenue expenditure such as expenditure on salaries, pensions
and interest payments is broadly committed in nature. Hence the focus of expenditure
restructuring and management measures is targeted on the non-committed component such as