The State government has amassed a revenue deficit of ₹ 15,319 crore up to October-end even as it is struggling to steady its coffers in the aftermath of downturn owing to the pandemic this financial year.
The deficit was just ₹ 4,640 crore during the corresponding period last year and ₹ 3,934 crore in 2018.
A deficit of such a big size this year was on account of an expenditure of ₹ 61,633 crore while the revenue receipts were only ₹ 46,314 crore. It amounted to (-) 341 % of the budgeted revenue estimate of (+) ₹ 4,482 crore up to October, according to the data released by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
The tax and non-tax revenues continue to be a matter of grave concern for the State government at a time when it is trying to steady its financial position in the face of the pandemic induced downturn.
The tax revenues up to October were ₹ 38,530 crore against the budgeted ₹ 1.02 lakh crore for 2020-21. The non-tax revenue was ₹ 1,781 crore against ₹ 30,600 crore. The tax revenues ranged from ₹ 6,500 crore to ₹ 6,700 crore from June to October while they were only ₹ 1,700 crore in April and ₹ 3,682 crore in May.
Barring June and August, the non-tax revenues never crossed ₹ 300 crore in a month.
Another matter of concern was that the government had already borrowed 83.19 % of its budgeted estimates till October and with heavy spendings which are generally reserved for the last quarter there was little chance for major capital infusion to meet the expenditure. The borrowings so far were ₹ 27,619 crore against ₹ 33,191 crore for the whole year. This was despite the government going slow on borrowings in September and October.
As usual, GST collections constituted the largest chunk of tax revenues at ₹ 12,887 crore followed by sales-tax at ₹ 10,097 crore and excise duties at ₹ 7,611 crore. The State’s share of Union taxes was ₹ 4,282 crore against an estimated ₹ 10,906 crore.
On the expenditure side, salaries and wages accounted for ₹ 12,582 crore, pensions ₹ 2,840 crore and subsidies ₹ 5,129 crore. Expenditure on revenue account was ₹ 31,956 crore out of the budgeted ₹ 78,536 crore for the whole year.