India’s fiscal deficit widens to 4.6% of GDP in FY20

01 Jun 2020 Evaluate

The India’s fiscal deficit, which signifies the gap between government revenue and expenditure, widened to 4.6 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in last financial year (FY20) mainly on account of poor revenue realisation. The deficit is higher than the revised estimate of 3.8 per cent for the fiscal. According to the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) data, the fiscal deficit for FY20 worked out to be 4.59 per cent of the GDP, while the revenue deficit was 3.27 per cent.

The effective revenue deficit was 2.36 per cent. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while unveiling the budget in February pegged the fiscal deficit for FY20 at 3.8 per cent, up from 3.3 per cent in the original budget estimate. The increase in the fiscal deficit has been mainly on account of shortfall in revenue collection during FY20. The revenue receipts during the year worked out to be only 90 per cent of the revised estimate.

In absolute terms, total receipts of the government were Rs 17.5 trillion against the estimate of Rs 19.31 trillion. The government's total expenditure was Rs 26.86 trillion, lower than Rs 26.98 trillion projected earlier. The revenue deficit during the fiscal soared to 3.27 per cent of the GDP as against 2.4 per cent in the revised estimates.

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