Fiscal deficit touches 61.4% of BE in Q1FY20

01 Aug 2019 Evaluate

The Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in its latest data has showed that the government's fiscal deficit or the gap between the government's expenditure and revenue touched 61.4% of the Budget Estimate (BE) in the first quarter (April-June) of fiscal year 2019-20 (FY20). In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit was Rs 4.32 trillion at June-end. It was 68.7% of 2018-19 BE in the year-ago period. The government estimates the fiscal deficit to be at Rs 7.03 trillion during 2019-20. It aims to restrict the fiscal deficit at 3.4% of the GDP in the current fiscal, same as the last financial year.

The data showed that revenue receipts of the government during April-June, 2019-20 was 14.4% of the BE. It was 15.5% of BE in the year-ago period. In absolute terms, revenue receipts stood at Rs 2.84 trillion at June-end 2019. During the entire year, the revenue receipts have been pegged at Rs 19.77 trillion. The capital expenditure was 18.8% of the BE as compared to 29% in the year-ago period.

Total expenditure during April-June period stood at Rs 7.21 trillion or 25.9% of BE. It was 29% of BE in the corresponding period last fiscal. The government has pegged its total expenditure during the fiscal ending March 2020 at Rs 27.84 trillion. The CAG said the fiscal deficit figure shown in monthly accounts during a financial year is not necessarily an indicator of fiscal deficit for the year as it gets impacted by temporal mismatch between flow of not-debt receipts and expenditure up to that month on account of various transitional factors both on receipt and expenditure side.

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