No proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency: FM

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a reply to the Lok Sabha on Monday that the government has no proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency in the country. The government does not collect data on Bitcoin transactions, she added.

Ministries spent Rs 2.29 lakh crore as capital expenditure

This comes amid the government’s plans to introduce the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 in the ongoing winter session of parliament. The Bill seeks to ban all but a few private cryptocurrencies to promote underlying technologies while allowing an official digital currency by RBI.

Sitharaman said that ministries and departments have spent Rs 2.29 lakh crore as capital expenditure during the April to September period of the current fiscal, in a reply to another question.

This, she said is 41% of the Budget Estimate (BE) of Rs 5.54 lakh crore for 2021-22. In the current fiscal, the actual expenditure is almost 38% higher than the corresponding expenditure in FY 2020-21.

The National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) launched by the Government of India with projected infrastructure investment of Rs 111 lakh crore during the period 2020-25 to provide world-class infrastructure across the country, and improve the quality of life for all citizens, in a move to accelerate capital expenditure for creation and upgradation of infrastructure in the economy.

She said that the uptrend in inflation has been largely led by exogenous factors like increased international prices of crude oil and edible oils which have an impact on domestic inflation due to India’s import dependence on these items.