Oct 09, Colombo: The Leader of the House Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva today presented the US$ 19.5 billion budget appropriation bill for 2013 to the Sri Lankan parliament for debate.

The Bill moved today to authorize the expenditure required during the 2013 financial year forecasts a 13.5 percent increase in spending from this year's estimate of 2.22 trillion rupees to 2.52 trillion rupees for next year.

A major chunk of the budget is allocated for the Defence and Urban Development Ministry with 289.5 billion rupees. The amount is an increase of nearly Rs. 60 billion from last year's allocations of 229.9 billion rupees. The government has considerably increased spending on urban development which comes under the Defense Ministry.

Allocations to the Education Ministry have been increased by 3.43 billion rupees from last year to 37.9 billion rupees while the Higher Education Ministry has been allocated 27.9 billion rupees, which is an increase of 4.1 billion rupees from 2012.

The total maximum borrowing for 2013 has been increased by 12.6 percent from 2012 to 1.3 trillion rupees.

The first reading of the Appropriation Bill will take place on October 09 while the Budget proposal (second reading) will be presented in November 08, after publishing it in the government gazette.