Fiscal deficit likely to exceed by 1% for FY12: PMEAC

01 Feb 2012 Evaluate

India's fiscal deficit for the current financial year is likely to go up by one percentage point, and it is expected to hover around 5.6% as compared to the budgeted 4.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), said Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) panel member M Govinda Rao. 

As per the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) data, the fiscal deficit for the first three quarters (April-December 2011), has already reached 92.3% of the full-year target and it is unlikely that the government will be able to contain it at the budgeted levels. This is mainly due to poor realization of non-tax revenues and also because the government has so far managed to raise only Rs 1,145 crore this fiscal from disinvestment against a target of Rs 40,000 crore. 

Rao's forecast seconds the view expressed by many private economists who had warned that the deficit could overshoot the budgeted target due to slowing growth and weak federal finances. The Centre's fiscal deficit was 45% of the estimates in the same period last year. For the current financial year, the government had estimated a deficit of Rs 4.12 lakh crore, or 4.6% of the GDP.

Till December, the government's tax receipts stood at Rs 4.20 lakh crore, 63.3% of the Budget target for the entire financial year. On the other hand, non-tax receipts were just Rs 78,077 crore, 62.2% of Budget estimates. Likewise, non-debt capital receipts were just Rs 16,858 crore, 30.6% of estimates, against 69.4% in the first three quarters of the last financial year.

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