'Govt does not foresee revenue shortfall, aims to achieve deficit target'

The Central government does not foresee any revenue shortfall at this stage and aims to achieve the targets fixed in the Budget Estimates for 2025-26, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary informed Parliament on Tuesday.

As per the Budget, the Centre has estimated the fiscal deficit for 2025-26 at 4.4 per cent of GDP, amounting to Rs 15.69 lakh crore.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, the minister said the Central government supports state finances through Finance Commission grants, Centrally Sponsored Schemes, and Special Assistance as loans to states for capital expenditure.

Total resources being transferred to the states, including the devolution of state's share in taxes, grants/loans and releases under Centrally Sponsored Schemes, etc, in Budget Estimates for 2025-26 is about Rs 25.01 lakh crore, he said.

In reply to another question, Chaudhary said, as per inputs received from Public Sector Banks (PSBs), as on March 31, 2025, 96 per cent staff are in position against their business requirement.

The small proportion of gap is attributable to attrition on account of superannuation and other usual factors, including unplanned exits, he said.

Further, during the last 5 years (FY 2020-25), banks have recruited 1,48,687 employees, and for FY 2025-26, recruitment of 48,570 employees is underway, he added.

Replying to another question, Chaudhary said, insurers are required to decide on the request for cashless authorisation within 1 hour of receipt of such request and grant final authorisation within 3 hours of the receipt of discharge authorisation request from the hospital as per IRDAI Master Circular on Health Insurance Business dated May 29, 2024.

However, the data related to the average time taken by insurance companies and third-party administrators (TPAs) for the claim settlement is not maintained by IRDAI, he said.

IRDAI has informed that during FY 2023-24, 58.39 per cent of total claims were settled through cashless mode in terms of count and 66.16 per cent in terms of amount, he said.

As per the data provided by National Health Authority, he said, the number of hospitals onboarded to National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX) is 450 as on March 28, 2025.

In another reply, Chaudhary said, enforcement action has been taken against 886 entities during the period April 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, for violation of provisions of SEBI (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices Relating to Securities Market) Regulations, 2003.

Continuous monitoring of key parameters is done to assess the effectiveness of measures implemented in the market, he said.

Surveillance systems, data analytics tools and digital forensics tools are constantly upgraded to detect manipulations, he added.