India's fiscal deficit reaches 27% of annual target

New Delhi: The Centre’s fiscal deficit at the end of the first five months of the current fiscal touched 27 per cent of the full-year target, while the deficit stood at 36 per cent of the budget estimates or BE in the corresponding period of 2023-24, government data showed on Monday.

As per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), in absolute terms, the fiscal deficit -- the gap between expenditure and revenue -- was at Rs 4,35,176 crore as of August-end. The government, however, aims to contain the fiscal deficit at Rs 16,13,312 crore during the current fiscal. In the Union Budget, the Centre projected to bring down the fiscal deficit to 4.9 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the current 2024-25 financial year. The deficit was 5.6 per cent of the GDP in 2023-24.

The data showed that the net tax revenue for the period was Rs 8.74 lakh crore, or about 34 per cent of the annual target, compared with Rs 8.04 lakh crore for the same period last year. “However, the total government expenditure during the period was Rs 16.52 lakh crore, or about 34.3 per cent of the annual goal, lower than the Rs 16.72 lakh crore in the same period last year,” the data said. Meanwhile, the growth in production of eight key infrastructure sectors contracted 1.8 per cent in August, while the growth rate was 6.1 per cent in July this year. The main reason for the dip in growth is due to a decline in the output of coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, cement and electricity, another government official data showed.

The growth of core sectors -- coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity -- was 13.4 per cent in August 2023. “During April-August this fiscal, the output of core sectors rose 4.6 per cent against 8 per cent in the same period last fiscal,” the data showed.