Finance minister Arun Jaitley has expressed that the government is confident of meeting the fiscal deficit target of 3.3% of GDP for the current financial year (FY19) despite revenue loss on account of reduction in Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates.
The GST Council in its 31st meeting has decided to cut rates on 23 commonly used goods and services, which will lead to an annual revenue loss of Rs 5,500 crore. The GST Council cut tax rates on 17 goods and 6 services, ranging from cinema tickets, televisions, digital cameras and Jan Dhan accounts to frozen vegetables. The reduced rates will come into effect from January 1, 2019
Besides, during the first seven months of FY19 (April-October), the fiscal deficit period stood at 103.9 per cent of budget estimates. The government has budgeted to contain fiscal deficit at 3.3 % of the GDP in Fy19, lower than 3.5 % in the previous financial year (FY18).
