Budget 2019: FM Sitharaman may retain fiscal deficit target at 3.4% of GDP

Sitharaman and her team have begun Budget preparations in earnest, with the finance ministry under 'quarantine' from June 10 onwards

When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents her first Union Budget in the Lok Sabha on July 5, she is highly likely to forecast a fiscal deficit target for 2019-20 (FY20) at 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), retaining the figure of the FY20 interim Budget presented on February 1.

Budget-makers in North Block are looking to maintain this fiscal status quo, in spite of tax revenues nowhere close to where the government wants and in spite of possible higher expenditure commitments. 

The reasons are, first, that while the finance ministry officials know of the challenges they face in