Apart from the allocation to cover fertilizer subsidy, supplementary grant requirements also have an allocation of ₹9,500 crore to the petroleum ministry to compensate oil marketing companies for under-return and ₹1,304 crore for additional expenditure of the higher education ministry. | Photo credit: Sansad TV
The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday (December 16, 2025) approved the first batch of supplementary grant requests, authorizing the Union government to spend an additional ₹41,455 crore in 2025-26. This includes over ₹18,000 crore for fertilizer subsidy. The gross additional expenditure in supplementary grant demands is ₹ 1.32 crore, of which ₹ 90,812.17 crore represents savings by various departments and ministries.
Apart from the allocation to cover fertilizer subsidy, supplementary grant requirements also have an allocation of ₹9,500 crore to the petroleum ministry to compensate oil marketing companies for under-return and ₹1,304 crore for additional expenditure of the higher education ministry.
Responding to a brief debate on the issue, state finance minister Pankaj Chaudhary said that the cost of fertilizers and the use of fertilizers, especially urea, has gone up. There is no shortage of fertilizers in the country. He added that urea production has also increased in the country. “Every month, urea production increases by about one million tonnes per month,” he said.
While maintaining that the Union government is focusing on fiscal consolidation, he said the fiscal deficit was 9.2% in 2020-21, while the target is only 4.4% in 2025-26. He said the allocations to the states had also increased during the Narendra Modi regime.
During the debate, opposition MPs alleged that the Center was reducing allocations to states and discriminating against opposition-ruled states. Congress’s GC Chandrashekhar said that there was an additional allocation of ₹1.32 crore, but the Centre’s popular programs could not be fully implemented by the states due to non-release of funds.
Aam Aadmi Party member Raghav Chadha has demanded a “Tokenization Bill” that would enable distributed ownership of assets through digital tokens. “Asset tokenization is one of the most transformative technological financial innovations of the 21st century and will see real estate and infrastructure projects and commodities, among others, broken down into small pieces of digital tokens. This tradable token can be used by anyone to buy or sell and make profits (from it) … This means that these large assets will be available not only to large farmers who can return large assets,” he said.
Published – 17 Dec 2025 02:30 IST
