India’s fiscal deficit at the end of November breached the target and touched 112% of the budget estimate for 2017-18 mainly due to lower GST collections and higher expenditure.
In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit — the difference between expenditure and revenue — was ₹6.12 lakh crore during April-November 2017-18, according to the data by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA).
During the same period a year earlier, the deficit stood at 85.8% of that year’s target. For 2017-18, the government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.2% of GDP. Last fiscal, it had met the target of 3.5% of GDP. The CGA data showed that the government’s revenue receipts were at ₹8.04 lakh crore in the eight months to November, which works out to 53.1% of the budget estimate (BE) of ₹15.15 lakh crore for 2017-18.
The receipts, comprising taxes and other items, were at 57.8% of the target in the year-earlier period.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections slipped to their lowest in November as rates were cut on dozens of goods to make the new national sales tax regime more acceptable. Total GST collections in November slipped to ₹80,808 crore, from over ₹83,000 crore in October.
