Govt to overshoot 4.8% fiscal deficit target by 0.40% in FY14: CRISIL

24 Dec 2013 Evaluate

In light of front loading of expenditure that has resulted in 84.4% of the budgeted fiscal deficit target being hit by November, Ratings agency Crisil anticipates the government to overshoot its 4.8 percent fiscal deficit target by 0.40 percent to 5.2 percent this fiscal. However, the rating agency has suggested that the Union Government could reduce its fiscal prices by 0.20% of the gross domestic product (GDP), or as much as Rs 20,000 crore, by using cash reserves of public sector units (PSUs).

As per credit rating agency, top 20 PSUs, by cash holding, will have an estimated pre-dividend corpus of around Rs 1,60,000 crore by March 31, 2014. Crisil expects these companies to be comfortably placed to pay special dividends of Rs 27,000 crore over and above their normal dividend payouts, without impacting on the capex plans. Further, these companies are anticipated to be well placed to distribute 40% of the corpus or Rs 64,000 crore as dividend.

On the fiscal deficit front, its president for research flagged concerns over the revenue collections from the taxation front and also about the government not being able to achieve its Rs 40,000 crore divestment target. In such a case, it highlighted cash reserves of PSUs to be an alternative source of income.

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