 "StatsGuru: 23 February 2015")
What are the benchmarks against which the Budget, to be presented on February 28, will be judged? The biggest is likely to be fiscal consolidation. The context is available in Table 1. The spike in the deficits at the time of the financial crisis in 2008 is yet to be addressed. The revenue deficit is still around 3 per cent of GDP.
The specific problem with fiscal consolidation is shown in Tables 2 and 3. Expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has been largely brought down and kept steady over the past few years.
Receipts have also come down but have kept decreasing. Table 4 shows that this is in spite of an increase in indirect tax receipts.
Some components of expenditure compression, even in revenue expenditure, are shown in Table 5: Both subsidies and defence expenditure have gone down as a percentage of GDP.
Table (6) shows the path of capital expenditure as a percentage of GDP, which some argue needs to be boosted to escape an investment slump.
Table 7 shows some of the priorities in the Plan expenditure.
The specific problem with fiscal consolidation is shown in Tables 2 and 3. Expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has been largely brought down and kept steady over the past few years.
Receipts have also come down but have kept decreasing. Table 4 shows that this is in spite of an increase in indirect tax receipts.
Some components of expenditure compression, even in revenue expenditure, are shown in Table 5: Both subsidies and defence expenditure have gone down as a percentage of GDP.
Table (6) shows the path of capital expenditure as a percentage of GDP, which some argue needs to be boosted to escape an investment slump.
Table 7 shows some of the priorities in the Plan expenditure.