April's fiscal deficit up at 24.3% of BE on lower expenditure, high revenue

Fiscal deficit in the first month of the current financial year touched 24.3 per cent of the budget estimates on account of higher revenue and lower expenditure.

Fiscal Deficit, which is the difference between total revenue and expenditure, was higher at 37.6 per cent in April of last fiscal.

During the month, the government has received Rs 714.5 billion (3.93 per cent of corresponding budget estimates (BE) for 2018-19 for total receipts), as per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA).

This comprises Rs 575.33 billion on account of tax revenue, Rs 131.24 billion of non-tax Revenue and Rs 7.93 billion of non debt capital receipts.

Non Debt Capital Receipts consists of Recovery of Loans (Rs 3.59 billion ) and PSU disinvestment (Rs 4.34 billion).

Total Expenditure incurred by the government was Rs 2234.17 billion (9.15 per cent of corresponding BE 2018-19).

Of this, over Rs 1.76 trillion is on Revenue Account and Rs 467.03 billion is on Capital Account.

"Rs 557.89 billion has been transferred to state Governments as Devolution of Share of Taxes by Government of India in this period, which is Rs 76.11 billion higher than the corresponding period of last year 2017-18," an official statement said.

The government had budgeted to cut fiscal deficit to 3.3 per cent of GDP in current fiscal, from 3.53 per cent of GDP in 2017-18.