The comfortable picture of low level of fiscal deficit is likely to change when the finance ministry picks up the tab for all types of non-plan expenditure like subsidies and interest in the later half of the year.
Senior officials connected with the government accounts say the monthly data put out by the finance ministry at present are simply progressive bookings of current expenditures.
They say there is essentially no concept of monthly total expenditure for the government. The only constraint on expenditure is that it should be entered in the expenses register in same fiscal year when it has been booked.
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The view is shared by economists who are also puzzled with the lower fiscal deficit that the government has managed to tote up so far without any substantial reduction in aggregate expenditure in the first five months of this fiscal year.
Talking to Business Standard, Shashank Bhide of the National Council of Applied Economic Research said it is possible that several items of expenditure have not been booked, especially subsidies.
He said there has been no reduction in the major subsidy bill from its last year