The government has planned to borrow less from the market in the next fiscal year as compared to the current fiscal’s revised estimate of net borrowing. Market borrowing by the government will be lower at Rs 4.07 lakh crore in 2018-19 as against revised estimate of Rs 4.79 lakh crore in 2017-18, a difference of around Rs 73,000 crore. However, gross borrowing for the next fiscal has been raised to Rs 6.05 lakh crore.
As per the revised estimate, net and gross market borrowing for the current fiscal, have pegged higher at Rs 4.79 lakh crore and Rs 5.99 lakh crore, respectively as against the Budget estimate of Rs 3.5 lakh crore and Rs 5.8 lakh crore, respectively. Besides, repayment for past loans for the next fiscal has been pegged at 1.4 lakh crore.
Indicating pressure on the fiscal maths, the government deviated from the fiscal deficit target of 3 per cent to 3.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) for the next fiscal. In the Budget, the government proposed to accept key recommendations of the Fiscal Reform and Budget Management Committee relating to adoption of the Debt Rule and to bring down Central Government’s Debt to GDP ratio to 40% and also accepted the recommendation to use Fiscal Deficit target as the key operational parameter.