NEW DELHI: India’s fiscal deficit soared to Rs 7.15 lakh crore at the end of February, exceeding the revised target of Rs 5.94 lakh crore by 120 per cent for the entire 2017-18 fiscal. According to data released by the Controller General of Accounts on Wednesday, the fiscal deficit or the gap between the government’s revenue and expenditure, for the April-February period stood at 120 per cent of the revised estimate presented by the Finance Ministry in February. This is more than last year as the government had hit 113 per cent of the budgetary estimate by February 2017.
In the 2018-19 Budget, finance minister Arun Jaitley had revised upwards the fiscal deficit target to 3.5 per cent of GDP for 2017-18, as against the initial target of 3.2 per cent, on account of GST implementation and deferment of spectrum auction.
The government claimed that increased expenditure and subdued revenue receipts were the reason behind the offshoot in fiscal deficit.
Till February-end the government has collected Rs 12.83 lakh crore in terms of revenue, which is 79.09 per cent of revised estimates.
Of this, over Rs 10.35 lakh crore was collected from taxes, while over Rs 1.42 lakh crore and Rs 1.05 lakh crore accrued on account of non-tax revenue and non-debt capital receipts, respectively.
Non-debt capital receipts consist of recovery of loans of Rs 13,301 crore. Besides, Rs 92,493 crore has been mopped up through PSU disinvestment till February-end. Also in 11 months till February, over Rs 5.29 lakh crore has been transferred to state governments as devolution of share of taxes by the Centre, which is Rs 66,039 crore higher than the corresponding period of last year 2016-17.
Total expenditure incurred by the government during the period was over Rs 19.99 lakh crore, which is 90.14 per cent of revised estimates for 2017-18. Of this, Rs 17.02 lakh crore is on revenue account and Rs 2.97 lakh crore is on capital account.
Of the total revenue expenditure, Rs 4.50 lakh crore is on account of interest payments and Rs 2.27 lakh crore is on account of major subsidies.
