Will stick to fiscal consolidation roadmap in Budget: FinMin

Government on Friday said it will stick to its fiscal consolidation roadmap without compromising on development spending and expenditure budgeted for the current fiscal. "Government is committed to promoting and strengthening inclusive and sustainable development by ensuring proper and effective utilisation of funds provided in the Annual Budget without compromising fiscal consolidation," finance ministry said in statement here. As a result of sound prudent policies formulated during 2015-16, the fiscal deficit at the end of November is Rs 4.83 lakh crore or 87 percent of the Budget Estimate for this fiscal.

"The fiscal deficit i.e. the gap between expenditure and revenue, for the entire current fiscal year has been pegged at Rs 5.55 lakh crore (3.9 percent of GDP)," it said. The government had set a fiscal deficit target of 3.9 percent of the GDP for the current fiscal.

The fiscal situation is an improvement over the previous year when the fiscal deficit was then 98.9 percent of Budget Estimates 2014-15. "In absolute terms, there is a decrease of Rs 41,611 crore over November 2014 figure." Similarly, the Revenue Deficit (net of grants for creation of capital assets) at Rs 2,64,404 crore in November 2015 is down 20 percent or Rs 65,087 crore) over November 2014. Against the Budgeted expenditure of Rs 1,35,257 crore under Plan head for creation of capital assets, the government has already incurred Rs 97,788 crore (72 percent of the Budget Estimate) as compared to Rs 62,146 crore (51 percent of BE) in the corresponding period of last year.

Total expenditure also increased from 60 percent of BE in November 2014 to 64 percent in November 2015, it added.