In a bad news for the economy, fiscal deficit in the first three quarters of the current fiscal year ending March touched 95.2% of the budgeted target for the whole year at Rs 5.16 lakh crore as compared with 78.8% a year ago, suggesting the ordeal that the economy would have to undergo for achieving its fiscal deficit target of 4.8% of gross domestic product, highest among BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Net tax receipts were at Rs 5.18 lakh crore in the first nine months of the current fiscal year to March 2014, while total expenditure was Rs 11.64 lakh crore. Meanwhile, factory gate duties were down 6.9 per cent at Rs 1.02 lakh crore during April-December from the year-earlier period, while customs tax receipts rose 4.3 per cent to Rs 1.24 lakh crore, much lower than the 13.6 per cent annual growth target.
Unperturbed by the rise in the fiscal deficit, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had exuded confidence that it would remain within the target of 4.8 percent of GDP in the current financial year. He had then averred that government finances will improve in December and the fiscal deficit will decline.