Misleading fiscal deficit

CAG's view on Budget numbers has merit

Questions about the Union government’s borrowing have been increasingly heard over the past few years, and are now reaching a crescendo. As this newspaper has reported, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has told both Parliament and the Fifteenth Finance Commission that the numbers in the Union Budget fail to include the growing off-Budget liabilities of the Union government. The CAG would like these numbers to be included in the Budget estimates. However, the government contends that it has already gone further than required in the 2019-20 Union Budget to account for these borrowings because “both the provisioning of repayment