After the government expressed confidence of meeting 3.2% fiscal deficit target for 2017-18, despite the low dividends from the Reserve Bank of India and muted proceeds from stake sales in public sector enterprises till now, the data of Controller General of Accounts (CGA) has revealed that India's fiscal deficit at July- end touched 92.4 percent of the budget target, as compared to 73.7 percent in the same period of the target of financial year 2016-17, mainly because of front loading of expenditure by various government departments. In April-July this year, the Centre released about Rs 1.5 lakh crore in food, fertiliser and fuel subsidies, a rise of 42 per cent YoY. The April-July period of this year also saw a 33 per cent YoY rise in capex at Rs 95,126 crore, nearly 40 per cent of which was defence-related.
As per the CGA data, government's revenue receipts improved at Rs 2.91 lakh crore during April-July period, which works out to be 19.2 percent of the target of Rs 15.15 lakh crore for the whole year, compared to revenue reciepits comprising taxes and other items of 18.6 percent of the target in the same period last year. It further stated that government's expenditure had been increasing on sequential basis and totalled Rs 8.08 lakh crore at July-end or 37.7 percent of the budget estimates.
The revenue expenditure of the government, the difference between revenue expenditure and revenue receipts, widened to 131.2 percent of the budget estimates, compared with 93 percent in the April-July period of the last fiscal. For 2017-18, the government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.2% of the GDP, after it met the it met the deficit target of 3.5 % of the GDP in the last fiscal.