Fiscal deficit at 95% of Budget Estimate

The fiscal deficit in the first nine months of FY14 stood at Rs 516390 crore, which was 95.2% as a proportion of Budget Estimate (BE) compared with 78.8% in the same period last year 2013. Meanwhile, the month of December 2013 showed a fiscal deficit of Rs 6833 crore, lower than Rs 51671 crore seen previous month. In April-December 2013, fiscal deficit recorded a 27.60% growth compared with same period last year. Lagging revenue growth and still-high expenditure growth especially in the context of weak revenue collections, is putting a strain on the fiscal situation. The upside to fiscal deficit has been due to relatively sharper increase in expenditure as compared to the revenues. On other hand, lower tax revenue growth by 6.92% in April-December 2013 also fueled higher fiscal deficit. The tax revenue again took a toll as only Rs 517661 crore, 59% of the BE of Rs 884078 crore, was collected in the first nine months of FY14. For the month of December 2013, the fiscal deficit at Rs 6833 crore is much higher than a fiscal surplus of Rs 8227 crore during December 2012. The reason for this slippage has been a considerably sharp increase in the plan expenditure on capital account.

Revenue deficit, which had overshot the BE till November 2013, came down to 97.7% of the estimates till December 2013. It means there were more revenues collected on the current account than spending. Revenue deficit recorded 24.56% growth to Rs 371242 crore in April-December 2013 compared with Rs 298037 crore in April-December 2012.

The primary deficit for April-December 2013-14 rose to Rs 267926 crore from Rs 202740 crore seen same time previous fiscal, marking rise of 32.15%. This accounted to 155.9% of the BE.

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