The government on Tuesday asked for Rs 1949.11 crore (Rs 19.49 billion) from Parliament for meeting redemption pressures on Unit Trust of India for US-64 and assured returns schemes as part of its second batch of supplementary demand for grants of Rs 9,045.05 crore (Rs 90.45 billion).

The supplementary demands moved by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, involves an additional cash outgo of Rs 5,032.11 crore (Rs 50.32 billion), which includes a whopping Rs 3,806 crore (Rs 38.06 billion) for drought relief under Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojana and Food for Work programmes.

The demands also include Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) towards meeting the ways and means advance needs of state governments.

This will be in addition to the Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), which the finance ministry has already budgeted for in the beginning of this fiscal.

The support for UTI includes Rs 438 crore (Rs 4.38 billion) for meeting the shortfall between the assured re-purchase price and NAV of the US-64 scheme.

This would entail a cash outgo for the Centre. However, the Centre will not need to make any additional cash defrayment for meeting the rest of Rs 1,511 crore (Rs 15.11 billion) for meeting the estimated liability on account of shortfall in assured return schemes of UTI.

Instead the expenditure will be matched by receipts of an equivalent amount.

In the first supplementary demand for grants in the monsoon session of Parliament, in this fiscal the government had asked for Rs 8,007.16 crore (Rs 80.07 billion) involving a cash outgo of Rs 3,913.36 crore (Rs 39.13 billion).

The demand for grants also includes loans and grants for several public sector units as a run up to their divestment.

This includes Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) for meeting VRS demand of IDPL, Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) as equity support to Hindustan Copper, and Rs 56 crore (Rs 560 million) for Jessop as grant as a fall out of the divestment package for the company, which is to be taken over by Ruia Cotex.

Another Rs 31 crore (Rs 310 million) would cover the post divestment adjustments for the ITDC hotels all of which would necessitate a cash outgo.

The Centre has also written of Rs 836.36 crore (Rs 8.36 billion) for the fertilizer industry, including 442.36 crore (4.42 billion) worth of loans for several fertiliser companies including Madras Fertilisers Ltd, FACT, Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation.

Another Rs 394 crore (Rs 3.94 billion) has been sanctioned for HFC, FCI, PPCL and Brahmaputra Valley Fertilisers Corporation for financing their voluntary separation scheme for their staff.

However, because of matching savings there would be no additional cash outgo.

The Centre has made a provision of Rs 429.17 crore (Rs 4.29 billion) for issue of government of India compensation bonds 2008, against receivables from Iraq.

The demand includes Rs 70 crore (Rs 700 million) for beefing up security in Parliament complex in the wake of terrorist attack on December 13, 2001.