Govt finances show improvement in July on higher revenue collection; fiscal deficit at 86.5% of bugdet estimate

New Delhi: Government’s finances have shown improvement in July with fiscal deficit at 86.5 percent of the Budget Estimate (BE), mainly on account of higher revenue collection, as per an official data. The deficit was at 92.4 percent of BE at July-end of the last financial year. In actual terms, the fiscal deficit or gap between the total expenditure and receipts was Rs 5.4 lakh crore in the first four months of 2018-19 financial year. [caption id=“attachment_4495585” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] The government has budgeted to cut fiscal deficit to 3.3 percent of GDP in 2018-19 from 3.53 percent in the previous year. The fiscal deficit target for 2018-19 is Rs 6.24 lakh crore. As per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), the tax collection (net) at end-July was Rs 2.92 lakh crore or 19.8 percent of BE. The total receipts of the government during April-July 2018 were Rs 3.49 lakh crore or 19.2 percent of BE. In the similar period of 2017-18, the collection was 19 percent of BE. The CGA data showed that total expenditure during April-July 2018 was Rs 8.89 lakh crore or 36.4 percent of BE. The expenditure was higher as a percentage of BE in the year-ago period. The capital expenditure was Rs 1.11 lakh crore or 37.1 percent of BE, CGA said.