Fiscal deficit touches 128.5% of Budget estimate at January-end; expenditure-revenue gap stands at Rs 9,85,472 cr: Govt data

New Delhi: India’s fiscal deficit touched 128.5 percent of the whole year budget target at January-end, said the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) on Friday. The fiscal deficit during the same period during 2018-19 was 121.5 percent of that year’s Revised Budget Estimate (RE). [caption id=“attachment_6013191” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] In actual terms, the fiscal deficit or gap between the expenditure and revenue stood at Rs 9,85,472 crore. The government had targeted to restrict the fiscal deficit at Rs 7,66,846 crore during the year ending 31 March 2020. While presenting the Union Budget to Parliament earlier this month, Finance Minister Nirmalal Sitharaman had raised fiscal deficit target to 3.8 percent of the GDP from 3.3 percent pegged earlier for 2019-20 due to revenue shortage. As per the CGA data on monthly accounts, revenue receipts during April-January were at Rs 12.5 lakh crore or 67.6 percent of the RE for 2019-20. This compares with 68.3 percent of the RE in the previous fiscal. Total receipts were at 66.4 percent of RE as against 67.5 percent in the year-ago period. The CGA further said that total expenditure at January-end was Rs 22.68 lakh crore or 84.1 percent of RE, higher than 81.5 percent in the corresponding period of the last fiscal.