As for social spending, the committee of secretaries has agreed to the Planning Commission’s proposal to a second supplementary demand of Rs 17,400 crores for UPA government’s key programmes in the coming parliament session due to “highly exceptional circumstances.” These, the Commission said, were programmes with the absorptive capacity, and that any new launch would take time in getting off and not get implemented during the current fiscal. The proposal has been reviewed with other ministries, it said.

The Indian economy which maintained a healthy clip of 9 per cent-plus growth rate on an average over the last four years has lost steam and slipped to 7.9 per cent and 7.6 per cent in the first two quarters of the current fiscal.