NEW DELHI: Even as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gears up to present her first budget, the latest government data released on Friday showed that India’s fiscal deficit in May stood at Rs 3.66 lakh crore, which is 52 per cent of the Budgeted Estimates (BE) for the current fiscal year.
Even when the number is still lower than the fiscal deficit last year, which was 55.3 per cent of 2018-19 budget estimates, the finance minister will have a daunting task to fuel economic growth that is slowing down and at the same time keep fiscal prudence, which it largely been able to keep in check in last five years.
Net tax receipts in the first two months of the fiscal year were Rs 1.15 lakh crore, while total expenditure was Rs 5.13 lakh crore, said data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA).Total expenditure during April-May period of FY19 stood at Rs 5.12 lakh crore or 18.4 per cent of the BE. It was 19.4 per cent of BE in the same period of the last fiscal.
In the Interim Budget passed in February, the Centre has set a fiscal deficit target of 3.4 per cent for 2019-20, same as the revised target for FY19. In absolute terms, it was at Rs 7.03 lakh crore for FY20. The Current account deficit (CAD) has also increased to USD 57.2 billion or 2.1 per cent of GDP in FY19 as against 1.8 per cent in the previous year, the RBI said on Friday. The CAD had stood at USD 48.7 billion in the previous year.