April-October fiscal deficit touches 74% of full-year target

New Delhi: Fiscal deficit in the first seven months of the current fiscal reached ₹ 4.11 trillion, or 74%, of the Budget estimate (BE) for the whole year. The fiscal situation in April-October showed improvement over the year ago period as the deficit then stood at 89.6% of the Budget estimate of 2014-15. The fiscal deficit—gap between government’s expenditure and revenue—for 2015-16 has been pegged at ₹ 5.55 trillion.

As per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts, tax revenue came in at ₹ 4.28 trillion, or 46.6%, of the full year BE of ₹ 9,19,842 crore. Total receipts from revenue and non-debt capital of the government during the first seven months read ₹ 6.10 lakh crore. The government estimates ₹ 12.21 trillion receipts at end-March 2016. The government’s plan expenditure during the period was ₹ 2.70 trillion, 58.2% of the full-year BE. During the same period last year, the government had managed to achieve 46.4% of the plan expenditure estimate. The non-plan expenditure during April-October of 2015-16 was ₹ 7.50 trillion, or 57.2%, of the whole-year estimate.

The total expenditure (plan and non-plan) was ₹ 10.21 trillion as against the government’s estimate for the current fiscal at ₹ 17.77 trillion. The revenue deficit during the seven months period stood at ₹ 2.87 trillion, or 72.9%, of BE for 2015-16. For 2015-16, the government aims to restrict fiscal deficit to ₹ 5.55 trillion, or 3.9% of GDP. The fiscal deficit was ₹ 5.01 trillion, or 4% of GDP, in 2014-15, down from 4.1% pegged in the revised estimate.