India’s fiscal deficit likely to be 6.0% of GDP in FY24: SBI Research

18 Jan 2023 Evaluate

SBI Research in its latest Ecowrap report has said that the upcoming Indian budget for 2023-24 will be a challenging one for the government to follow the roadmap for fiscal consolidation amidst a global environment of declining inflation. It said for India, this could make things difficult to set a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) number significantly higher than 10 per cent, with a deflator about 3.5 per cent. But this could also mean a higher GDP growth than anticipated at about 6.2 per cent. It added that fiscal deficit for FY24 is estimated at around Rs 17.95 lakh crore or 6.0% of GDP in FY24, thereby resulting in fiscal consolidation of 40 bps from the current fiscal.

As per the report, for FY23, total receipts of the Government would be higher than BE by around Rs 2.3 lakh crore, on account of higher direct tax receipts (around Rs 2.2 lakh crore), higher GST receipts (Rs 95,000 crore) but lower dividends (around Rs 40,000 crore), lower fuel tax net of cess (Rs 30,000 crore) and lower disinvestment receipts (around Rs 15000-20,000 crore). Meanwhile, expenditure is likely to be on the higher side of the BE by around Rs 3 lakh crore on account of higher subsidy bill and additional spending announced by the Government. Taking this into account, fiscal deficit of the Government in FY23 is expected to come at Rs 17.5 lakh crore. However, higher nominal GDP growth (15.4%) estimates will help in keeping the fiscal deficit at 6.4% of the GDP.

In FY24, it assumes the Government expenditure is likely to increase by around 8.2% over FY23 estimates to Rs 46.0 lakh crore. Subsidy bill which increased significantly in FY23 is estimated to be reduced in FY24 to around Rs 3.8-4.0 lakh crore and capital expenditure is expected to grow by 12%. Meanwhile, receipts (minus borrowing and other liabilities) are expected to grow by ~12.1% with tax revenue receipts growth likely at 11.0%. With nominal GDP growth at 10%, tax buoyancy is thus expected at close to 1.1 compared to expected tax buoyancy of 1.5 in FY23. It said as far as borrowing is concerned, it expects net market borrowing of the Centre in FY24 will be around Rs 11.7 lakh crore and with repayments of Rs 4.4 lakh crore, gross borrowing are expected at Rs 16.1 lakh crore.

© 2025 The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. MoneyWorks4Me ® is a registered trademark of The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd.

×