Fiscal deficit touches 96.1% of Budget estimate in first five months of FY18

 NEW DELHI: Fiscal deficit – the difference between expenditure and revenue - for the April-August 2017 period touched 96.1 per cent of the budget estimate (BE) for 2017- 18, owing to rise in expenditure, government data showed.

During the same period of last financial year, it was 76.4 per cent of the target. In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit was Rs 5.25 lakh crore during the first five months of FY18, Controller General of Accounts (CGA) data showed. The government plans to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.2 per cent of the GDP in the current financial year.

Last fiscal, it had met the deficit target of 3.5 per cent of the GDP. The CGA data also showed that the government's revenue receipts worked out at Rs 4.09 lakh crore during the April-August period, constituting 27 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs 15.15 lakh crore for the whole year. In the year-ago period, revenue receipts comprising taxes and other items were 28 per cent of the target. According to the CGA data, the government's expenditure totalled Rs 9.5 lakh crore at August-end or 44.3 per cent of the budget estimates.

In the comparable period last fiscal, the expenditure was 40.5 per cent of the budget estimate. Capital expenditure during April-August of FY18 was 35.5 per cent of BE compared to 37 per cent in the same period of the last fiscal. The revenue expenditure was 45.8 per cent of the BE during April-August 2017-18. The figure was 41 per cent in the comparable period n the previous fiscal.

Govt to keep target same

The Government had stressed on Thursday that it will stick to its fiscal deficit and borrowing targets. The deficit target for the current fiscal is 3.2 per cent