Mid-Year Review: Govt sets focus on public spending, social security net

Targets fiscal deficit 'lower than 4.5% of GDP'

Ahead of the 2025-26 Budget presentation, the finance ministry’s Mid-Year Review for 2024-25 said that the thrust 

of the government during the next financial year will be on “improving the quality of public spending” while simultaneously “strengthening the social security net for the poor and needy.”

  In a statement on trends in receipts and expenditures for the first half (April–September) of FY25, tabled in Parliament on December 20 and released on Monday, the finance ministry reaffirmed its commitment to the fiscal consolidation glide path, targeting a fiscal deficit “lower than 4.5 per cent of GDP” by FY26.

 

“This approach would