Jaitley also hinted that these very economic realities could decide whether the government sticks to a fiscal consolidation roadmap or not.
The 66-year-old finance minister underwent a successful kidney transplant surgery in mid-May and was on leave since April due to kidney-related problems and chest infection.
This amount will include Rs 13,100 crore that Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Garg has been publicly seeking from the central bank's contingency reserve fund since 2017-18 (FY18).
The losses in state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh have put the ruling party under pressure to announce swift measures aimed at addressing rural distress and lack of employment.
The Centre has projected reining in its fiscal deficit at 3.3 per cent of GDP in FY19.
A chunk of divestment till now has come from follow-on offerings in the Centre's two ETFs, Bharat-22 and CPSE. Now, there will be initial public offerings of Mazagon Docks, rail companies RVNL and IRFC and MSTC.
Linking all new floating rate loans to an external benchmark won't impact existing borrowers, so customers who have taken long-term home loans recently should watch things carefully, say Joydeep Ghosh and Sanjay Kumar Singh.
Highly-placed sources in the government say that none of the senior ministers had any inkling of Patel's resignation
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley revealed that the government wanted to give Hasmukh Adhia a post-retirement role, but Dr Adhia said he would not work for a single day after November 30.
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia vacates his post on November 30 and Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, the second seniormost bureaucrat in the finance ministry, retires on January 31, the day before Jaitley presents the 2019-20 interim budget.
There was no law that prevented the government from presenting a sixth full Budget, or something similar to it.
The Financial Stability and Development Council meeting on Tuesday started with an air of tension in the room. An official present described the participants' body language as "tetchy". However, once presentations and discussions begun, the mood considerably eased.
Senior policymakers say it is a tough task and the finance ministry may resort to the time-tested method of carrying forward part of the subsidy payment burden to the next fiscal year.
According to the data available on the Reserve Bank of India's website, net workers' remittances in April-June 2018 were $11.5 billion
Keki Mistry, bottom, left, vice-chairman, Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), tells Joydeep Ghosh that debt fund investors could become risk-averse, leading to problems for other non-banking financial companies.
'The rupee falling from 69 to 72 was not normal or justified by the fundamentals.' 'And therefore I treat this as temporary.'
'Allocate 30% to 35% of your equity portfolio to mid-cap funds and 10% to 15% to small-cap funds.'
The IL&FS management is also talking to its second-largest shareholder, Orix Corporation of Japan, to infuse more funds into the company - in case any shareholder backs out during the rights issue.
'For the RBI, it is also strategic to allow the rupee to over-depreciate, then come and buy the rupee, and benefit from its appreciation. Speculators who have driven the rupee too low then make losses,' says Ashima Goyal.
Sources said valuation of all these assets was an ongoing process, and the mode and manner of disposal would be decided on a case-by-case basis