Regaining fiscal balance

GST rate restructuring will be critical for consolidation

As the Union government starts the exercise to prepare the next year’s Budget and revised estimates for the current year in October, it will be in a far more comfortable position compared to last year. The fiscal position has improved significantly and the recovery in revenue collection has surprised most analysts. By July-end, the government collected revenue worth over 37 per cent of its Budget Estimate (BE) for the current fiscal year. The comparable number in the last fiscal year was about 11 per cent. To be fair, last year was not a normal year and economic activity suffered severely