In its quest of not breaching the fiscal deficit target of 3.2% for the current fiscal year, the government has reduced the additional borrowing requirement to Rs 20,000 crore for the financial year 2017-18. Prior to this, an additional loan of Rs 50,000 crore was estimated to be borrowed. The economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg stated that the government has revised the requirements of additional loans keeping in view the revenue receipts and expenditure pattern. Decreasing the debt will help the government to regulate the fiscal deficit within the target set.
The decline in revenue collections from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and lower non-tax revenue has raised concerns of the government about the fiscal deficit target. As per the latest figure, the country's fiscal deficit had surpassed the final estimate for the 2017-18 and touched 112% of the budget estimate at the end of November.
The government has budgeted gross and net market borrowings at Rs 5.8 lakh crore and Rs 4.23 lakh crore, respectively in 2017-18. The government in the 2017-18 budget had estimated borrowings at Rs 43,000 crore through dated securities in current fiscal. Earlier, after consultation with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the government had said that it would make additional borrowing of Rs 50,000 crore this fiscal through dated securities. However, there will be no change in the net borrowings as envisaged in the Budget for 2017-18.
