Fiscal deficit down at 4.9% of GDP

The Centre was able to rein in the Centre's fiscal deficit at 4.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012-13, against 5.2 per cent pegged in the revised estimate (RE) and 5.1 per cent projected in the Budget estimate.

However, the fiscal deficit numbers released for April 2013 showed the gap between the Centre's expenditure and revenues stood at a whopping 17.3 per cent of the Budget target.

The fiscal deficit numbers for both March and April were released today by the Controller General of Accounts.

While the government was accused of cutting expenditure too much to control fiscal deficit, it did not meet even the RE targets for outlays. However, it was able to raise revenues higher than the RE.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the government would focus more on revenue-raising, rather than expenditure compressing for the current financial year. The Centre's fiscal deficit stood at Rs 4.90 lakh crore in 2012-13, six per cent lower than the RE of Rs 5.21 lakh crore. It's revenues stood at Rs 9.19 lakh crore during 2012-13, 1.1 per cent higher than Rs 9.09 lakh crore estimated in the RE.

On the other hand, the Centre's expenditure was 1.5 per cent lower at Rs 14.31 lakh crore, against Rs 1.41 lakh crore pegged in the RE.

The government was able to mop up higher revenues, despite taxes missing the RE by a whisker - by 0.1 per cent. Tax collections stood at Rs 7.41 lakh crore against Rs 7.42 lakh crore.

The government reduced its disinvestment target from Rs 30,000 crore in the Budget estimate ) to Rs 24,000 crore in RE. However, it was able to collect Rs 25,890 crore from the sale of government equity in public sector units.

The government was blamed for drastically cutting the Plan expenditure to various ministries and departments in the RE. Plan expenditure stood at Rs 4.14 lakh crore in 2012-13, 3.5 per cent lower than the RE of Rs 4.29 lakh crore.

However, the government was able to cut its non-Plan expenditure, albeit moderately. Its outlay under this head stood at Rs 9.95 lakh crore, short by 0.7 per cent of the RE of Rs 10.02 lakh crore.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the government would focus on raising revenues to bring down deficit to below 4.8 per cent of the GDP in the current financial year.

"I don't wish to compress expenditure; therefore, revenues have to go up. For 2013-14, (we) have to do much better than 4.8 per cent," he told reporters here.

The fiscal numbers for March and April 2013 showed that fiscal deficit stood at Rs 93,612 crore in April, which is 17.3 per cent of BE (Rs 5.42 lakh crore) for FY14 and 13.1 per cent of BE for FY13.