Expressing confidence of achieving fiscal deficit target of current fiscal year, Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has said that the government is on the course of meeting the fiscal deficit target of 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2017-18. He added that this will be aided by buoyant tax collections, especially on the direct tax side coupled with Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections and natural savings by ministries. He also said that on the whole, the FY18 has been very good, although it was a year of uncertainty for revenue due to the implementation of the GST and other reforms.
Adhia said the government collected Rs 9.95 lakh crore from direct taxes, crossing the Budget Estimate of Rs 9.80 lakh crore. However, the collections fell short of revised estimates of Rs 10.05 lakh crore. Talking about revenues from the GST, he said that the collection is 98% of the Rs 4.44 lakh crore target set in revised budget estimates. He further said that there might be less expenditure as some departments might not have spent the entire amount allocated to them for the entire fiscal.
Finance Secretary added that if a department, in spite of giving them the money is unable to spend, then it becomes a natural savings and that kind of natural savings may be there, but not otherwise. However, he said that it would take about 10 days time to ascertain the quantum of savings by various ministries and departments. Besides, the government had reported a fiscal deficit of Rs 7.16 lakh crore or 120.3% of the revised target for April-February.
