Raised fiscal deficit target to 3.8% for FY20 looks ambitious: SBI Research

03 Feb 2020 Evaluate

SBI Research in its latest report has said that the raised fiscal deficit target to 3.8 percent of the GDP from 3.3 percent pegged earlier for 2019-20 looks ambitious as it is based on projected 18 percent rise in tax collections against a paltry 5.1 percent higher realisaition so far. It said the revised deficit target is propped on the belief that the divestment will fetch Rs 65,000 crore through in the last two months of FY20.  It added that as against the Rs 1.05 trillion budgeted target, the divestment proceeds has been one of the lowest in recent years at a paltry Rs 17,800 crore.

According to the report, after adjusting for the expenditure rationalisation of around Rs 88,000 crore, the revised fiscal deficit for FY20 comes to around Rs 63,086 crore over the budgeted numbers. It said the saving grace is the jump in non-tax revenue of around Rs 32,335 crore or 20 bps of fiscal deficit, possibly reflecting the AGR payments/interim dividend from RBI in lieu of telecom. It noted that clearly, the Supreme Court judgement has helped the government contain fiscal deficit at 3.8 percent instead of 4 percent. It pointed out that if this amount goes up (potentially up to Rs 90,000 crore) the fiscal deficit number can even be lower than 3.8 percent or alternatively it can be possible that any slippage in disinvestment receipts/tax receipts could be taken care of.

However, the report said the problem is that the revised estimates pegs income tax collections growing at 18 percent as against 20 percent budgeted earlier is a tad optimistic as the year-to-date FY20 collections as on December is only 5.1 percent higher year-on-year. It added that the only saving grace has been for the second time in the fiscal after the April collections GST mop-up crossed Rs 1 trillion-mark at over Rs 1.2 crore.

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