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Variation between revised and final Budget numbers has grown

The government on Friday released the provisional actual numbers for government revenue for the fiscal year 2019-20. They differed greatly from the estimates used by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman when she presented the Union Budget for 2020-21. The fiscal deficit in 2019-20 is 4.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), according to the provisional actuals, as distinct from the revised estimate for 2019-20, which was 3.8 per cent. This came about because the revised estimates in the Budget severely overestimated the government’s tax revenues. Gross tax revenues were supposed to grow by 4 per cent in 2019-20 over the