India's FY17 fiscal deficit estimated at 3.5% of GDP
01 Jun 2017
India's fiscal deficit in the year ended 31 March 2017 stood at 3.5 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), which is in line with the budgeted estimates, official data released on Wednesday showed.
"Fiscal deficit is 3.51 per cent of GDP or Rs5.35 lakh crore in 2016-17," the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) said while releasing the provisional accounts for the last financial year.
For the 2017-18 financial year, the government aims to further bring down the fiscal deficit - the gap between expenditure and revenue - to 3.2 per cent.
The government's net tax receipts stood at Rs1,102,000 crore during the fiscal year. This, according to the CGA amounted to a revenue deficit of 2.2 per cent of GDP.
As per the provisional data, the fiscal deficit in April 2017 was Rs2,05,000 crore, which is 37.6 per cent of the budget estimate, as against 25.7 per cent in the year-ago period.
Total expenditure of the government in April was Rs2,42,000 crore, or 11.3 per cent of the full-year estimate.
Revenue collection was Rs35,081 crore, or 2.3 per cent, of the estimate. Total receipts of the government - from revenue and non-debt capital - in April stood at Rs36,529 crore.
The revenue deficit, which is the difference between government's revenue realization and target, during April 2017 stood at Rs1,78,383 crore, or 55.4 per cent of GDP, it said.
