Indian Fiscal Landscape

Industry body CII has suggested the government to stick to the fiscal deficit target of 4.9 per cent of GDP for 2024-25 and 4.5 per cent for 2025-26, cautioning that "overly aggressive targets" beyond these could adversely affect India's economic growth. "India has been growing rapidly amidst a slowing global economy. Prudent fiscal management for macroeconomic stability has been pivotal to this growth," said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, elaborating on suggestions for the forthcoming Union Budget. CII also highlighted the announcement in the Union Budget 2024-25 to keep the fiscal deficit at levels that help reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio. In preparation for this, the forthcoming budget could lay out a glide path to bring the central government's debt to below 50 per cent of GDP in the medium term (by 2030-31), and below 40 per cent of GDP in the long term, CII has suggested. Such an explicit target will have a positive impact on India's sovereign credit rating and ...

Non-debt capital receipts, primarily disinvestment receipts, fell short of the FY23 target by 13.5 per cent

India is likely to breach its fiscal deficit target in the financial year to March 2022 mainly due to revenue shortfall, Fitch Solutions said Friday. The government is targeting a deficit between revenue it earns and what it spends at 6.8 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in FY22 (April 2021 to March 2022). "We at Fitch Solutions forecast the Indian central government deficit to come in at 8.3 per cent of GDP in FY22," it said. "Revenue shortfall remains the main driver of our wider deficit view, as we expect the government to maintain its spending targets." Fitch Solutions had previously projected a fiscal deficit of 8 per cent. "The main driver of our deficit forecast revision is a downward revision to our outlook for revenues, given that the flare-up in COVID-19 cases in India and containment measures in place will hamper India's economic recovery, which will have a negative impact on fiscal revenues," it said. Central government expenditure is likely to be around t

States are now responsible for a large share of total government spending and borrowing. They need to maintain prudent fiscal deficits and reduce their debt levels