The Modi government has never been able to meet the fiscal deficit targets it sets for the next two years in the nine budgets, except for 2016-17, given in the Budget for 2015-16. Even in this case, the original target given in the Budget for 2014-15 was three per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), which was widened to 3.5 per cent in the next Budget and realised.
It is widely expected that the Budget to be presented on February 1 would more or less meet the fiscal deficit target of 6.4 per cent of GDP for FY23 due