Fiscal deficit for Apr-June at 3.5 lakh cr; 21% of FY23 target

The central government's fiscal deficit for April-June 2022 stood at ₹3,51,871 crore, which is about 21.2% of its full financial year target, the data released by the Controller General of Accounts shows.

During the same period last year, India's fiscal deficit was ₹2,74,245 crore, about 18.2% of the FY22 target. During the previous Jan-March period, the Centre's fiscal deficit was ₹2.71 lakh crore.

The Centre's full-year target for fiscal deficit stands at ₹16,61,196 crore.

The revenue-expenditure data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) shows that for June 2022 alone, the fiscal deficit was ₹1,47,950 crore, which was hit because the Centre announced an excise duty cut on petrol and diesel on May 21.

To control the rising inflation in the economy, the Central government announced a reduction in the central excise duty by cutting petrol prices by ₹8 per litre and diesel prices by ₹6 per litre in May. It also announced a ₹200 subsidy on LPG gas cylinders. The excise cut on fuel and subsidy outgo on LPG is expected to cost over ₹1 lakh crore to the Centre.

To offset some impact, the Centre on July 1 imposed a special additional excise duty of ₹6 per litre on exports of petrol and ₹13 per litre on exports of diesel. The special additional excise duty of ₹6 per litre was imposed on the exports of aviation turbine fuel, too. On July 20, however, the export tax of ₹6 per litre on petrol was removed, while the windfall tax on diesel and ATF exports was cut by ₹2 a litre.

In total, the government received ₹5,96,040 crore up to June 2022, comprising ₹5,05,898 crore tax revenue (net to Centre), ₹62,160 crore of non-tax revenue and ₹27,982 crore of non-debt capital receipts up to June 2022. The receipts for June are 26.1% of corresponding budget estimates for 2022-23 of the total receipts.

The non-debt capital receipts consist of recovery of loans of ₹3,423 crore and miscellaneous capital receipts of ₹24,559 crore. Around ₹1,42,775 crore has been transferred to states as devolution of share of taxes by the government up to this period, which is ₹25,251 crore higher than the previous year.

The total expenditure incurred by the government is ₹9,47,911 crore, 24.0% of the corresponding BE 2022-23. Of this, ₹7,72,847 crore is in the revenue account and ₹1,75,064 crore is in the capital account. Of the total revenue expenditure, ₹2,28,595 crore is on account of interest payments and ₹67,980 crore is on account of major subsidies.

India's fiscal deficit for the 2021-22 financial year was 6.71% of the GDP, lower than the 6.9% projected in the finance ministry's revised estimates. The revenue deficit at the end of the financial year stood at ₹10,32,947 crore (4.37%) in absolute terms.