Govt to achieve fiscal deficit target of 4.1% on last minute payment by telecos

01 Apr 2015 Evaluate

Aided by last minute payment of Rs 10,808 crore by telecom companies for spectrum and tax receipts in March, the government is believed to have achieved the challenging fiscal deficit target of 4.1% of GDP for 2014-15. According to Controller General of Accounts (CGA), fiscal deficit for April-February period of the just concluded fiscal stood at Rs 6.02 lakh crore, nearly 90,000 crore over the target of Rs 5.12 lakh crore.

This development is definitely a welcome relief for Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, who was keen to meet the fiscal deficit target, set by his predecessor P Chidambaram. The minister, besides accepting the challenge of achieving difficult to achieve fiscal deficit target for the year also proposed to bring down fiscal deficit to 3.9% of GDP in 2015-16, 3.5% in 2016-17 and 3% by 2017-18.

Out of the total Rs 10,808 crore payment made by telecom companies, Bharti Airtel made part payment of Rs 4,725 crore, followed by Reliance Jio , which paid Rs 2,518 crore, Idea Cellular  of Rs 1,935 crore, Vodafone  of Rs 1,030 crore and Tata Teleservices  of Rs 600 crore.

Notably, although telecom companies were requested to make payment till April 8 to pay Rs 28,872 crore of the spectrum winning bid, however giving into the request made by telecom minister of making early payments in order for government to achieving its fiscal deficit targets, telecom made part of their payments on last trading session of the financial year.

 

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