Growth slowdown, fiscal dilemma complicate India's Budget preparation

Last week, the Union Ministry of Finance released its “Mid-Year Review of Trends in Government Receipts and Expenditure”. On the surface, this document made for unremarkable reading. The Ministry pointed out that revenue receipts in the first half of the year, at almost 52 per cent of Budget Estimates, were above the five-year rolling average; and the fiscal deficit, as a percentage of gross domestic product or GDP, was below the norm for the first half of the year. This might give the sense that India’s macroeconomic position is quite comfortable as the season for preparing the Union Budget gets