April-May fiscal deficit is Rs 2.4 lakh crore

The fiscal deficit in the first two months of 2013-14 was Rs 2.4 lakh crore or 45.6 per cent of Budget Estimates for the whole financial year.
The fiscal deficit -- the gap between expenditure and revenue -- for the whole fiscal has been pegged at Rs 5.28 lakh crore.
The deficit during the same period last year was 33.3 per cent of Budget Estimates.
The fiscal deficit was Rs 5,08,149 crore or 4.5 per cent of GDP in 2013-14, down from 4.9 per cent in the previous year.
The government had put in place a fiscal consolidation roadmap as per which the fiscal deficit has to be brought down to 3 per cent of the GDP by 2016-17.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is scheduled to present the maiden budget of the new government on July 10 in which he is expected to spell out the fiscal policies.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Interim Budget speech had set the fiscal deficit target for 2014-15 at 4.1 per cent of the GDP.
The data released by the Controller and Accounts General further revealed that the total expenditure of the government during April and May was Rs 2.8 lakh crore or 15.9 per cent of the entire year estimates.
Of the total expenditure, plan spending was Rs 59,609 crore and under non-plan head it was Rs 2,20,730 crore.

Revenue collection was Rs 38,505 crore or 3.3 per cent of the estimate. It was 3.4 per cent of the estimates in 2013-14.
Total receipts (from revenue and non-debt capital) of the government during the two months was Rs 39,502 crore.
The data said revenue deficit in the two months was Rs 2,05,080 crore or 53.6 per cent of the estimates.