The Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in its latest data has showed that the country’s fiscal deficit in the first four months of current financial year (FY19) came in at Rs 5,40,257 crore or 86.5% of the FY19 Budget target. The country’s fiscal deficit for FY19 is budgeted at 3.3% of the GDP against the actual of 3.5% in FY18. Though this appeared to be inconsistent with the fiscal consolidation plan, the situation was still better than the year-ago period when the deficit had touched 92.4% of the annual target.
Budgetary capital expenditure in April-July 2018, stood at Rs 1,11,337 crore, 17% higher than the year-ago period and 37.1% of the full-year target, indicating the continued heavy reliance on public investments for growth amid scarce evidence of a much-awaited recovery in private investments. The pace of overall spending has been marginally slower so far this year than the year-ago period, on account of revenue spending squeeze. The Centre’s total expenditure was Rs 8.9 lakh crore or 36.4% of the FY19 target, compared to 37.7% of the target in the corresponding period last year.
In first four months (April-July) of the current financial year, India’s Centre’s tax revenue (net of transfers to states) stood at Rs 2.93 lakh crore or 19.8% of the FY19 Budget estimate (BE), as compared to 21% of the corresponding target in the year-ago period.