India’s Fiscal Deficit At 52% Of FY20 Target In May

India’s fiscal deficit breached the halfway mark of its budgetary estimate two months into the financial year.

The gap between the government’s revenue and expenditure rose to Rs 3.66 lakh crore at the end of May, according to data released by the Controller General of Accounts. That’s 52 percent of the targeted Rs 7.03 lakh crore in 2019-20.

It’s, however, narrower than in May last year when it stood at 55.3 percent of the FY19 target. The government managed to meet the revised target of 3.4 percent of the gross domestic product in the previous fiscal after it cut last-minute expenditure and rolled over fuel subsidies to make up for the shortfall in tax collection.

• The government’s total expenditure for April-May this year rose to Rs 5.12 lakh crore, or 18.4 percent of the full-year target.
• The revenue receipts stood at 7.3 percent of the target at Rs 1.43 lakh crore.
• Tax revenue in the April-May period was Rs 1.15 lakh crore, or 6.8 percent of the full-year target.
• Non-tax revenue hit 10.4 percent of the target at Rs 28,423 crore.
• Capital expenditure reached 14.2 percent of the 2019-20 target, compared to 21.3 percent in the same period last year.