Fiscal deficit for April-December period widens to Rs 9.9 lakh crore

The Centre on Tuesday said that the fiscal deficit touched 59.8 per cent of the full year Budget Estimate by the end of December, as per the data released by the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday. The fiscal deficit was 50.4 per cent in the year-earlier period. In actual terms, the fiscal deficit during the April-December period of 2022-23 was Rs 9.93 lakh crore. The fiscal deficit is the difference between expenditure and revenue. The government in the Budget 2022-23 had set the fiscal deficit limit to be Rs 16.61 lakh crore or 6.4 per cent of the GDP in the current year ending March 2023.

As per the data, total receipts were at Rs 18.25 lakh crore, while overall expenditure from April to December was at 28.18 lakh crore rupees. They were 79.9 per cent and 71.4 per cent of this year's Budget target. The net tax receipts were up to Rs 15.56 lakh crore while the total expenditure was at Rs 28.18 lakh crore, the government data showed.

In the period between April and December 2022, revenue receipts stood at Rs 17.70 lakh crore, of which tax revenue was Rs 15.56 lakh crore and non-tax revenue was Rs 2.14 lakh crore. The tax and non-tax revenues were 80.4 per cent and 79.5 per cent of the budgeted estimate. These numbers were lower than the previous estimates of 95.4 per cent and 106.7 per cent, respectively.

Last year while reading out the Union Budget 2022-23, FM Nirmala Sitharaman had said that India will aim to narrow the fiscal gap to 6.4 per cent of gross domestic product from 6.7 per cent in 2021-22.