New Delhi: With slack growth in revenue collections, the country’s fiscal deficit touched 134.2 per cent of the full-year revised budgeted estimate at the end of February 2019, according to government data released on Friday.
In early February, while presenting the annual budget for 2019-20, the government had revised upward its fiscal deficit target to 3.4 per cent of GDP, for the current fiscal year from the previously budgeted target of 3.3 per cent.
The fiscal deficit for April-February 2018-19 was at Rs 8.51 lakh crore in an absolute term against the revised estimate (RE) of Rs 6.34 lakh crore for the entire fiscal, data from the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) shows.
Reacting to the data, Economic Affairs Sec-retary SC Garg told reporters the government is committed to restrict the fiscal deficit at 3.4 per cent as envisaged in the budget.
The CGA data, however, showed that revenue receipts of the Centre was Rs 12.65 lakh crore, or 73.2 per cent, of the revised BE at February end. In the same period last fiscal, the revenue collection was 78.2 per cent of the estimates.
The government’s tax revenue stood at Rs 10.94 lakh crore and non-tax revenue was Rs 1.7 lakh crore, while total expenditure incurred by the government during April-February was Rs 21.88 lakh crore, of which Rs 19.15 lakh crore was on revenue account and Rs 2.73 lakh crore on capital account.
