oppn parties Fiscal Deficit, Extra Borrowings and GDP

News Snippets

  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
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Fiscal Deficit, Extra Borrowings and GDP

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2017-12-28 12:12:02

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
The government has decided to borrow Rs 50000cr via the G-Sec market in the remainder of the fiscal year. This obviously means that fiscal deficit (FD) targets are not being kept in check and the target of fiscal deficit of 3.2 of GDP this fiscal is under stress. The last time the government did this was when it borrowed Rs 90000cr in FY12 and then the fiscal deficit target was revised from 4.6 to 5.9% of the GDP. This year, the additional money that the government is seeking to borrow will take the deficit to around 3.5% of the GDP which is within the FRBM norms.

Why this urgent need to borrow funds and why choose the G-Sec route? Let us take the second question first. Experts have pointed out that the government could have drawn its surplus balance with the Reserve Bank instead of borrowing in an already nervous G-Sec market. Other experts believe that this borrowing is the result of fiscal slippages on account of shortfall in RBI dividend and revenue loss in excise due to implementation of GST. That more or less answers the first question.

Then there is the question of economic slowdown. Bank credit is hovering around negative figures and industries are saddled with surplus capacity. Consumption is not rising as households are stressed due to food inflation and rising healthcare and education costs. Revenue collections have fallen due to GST rate cuts. State finances are already in severe disarray. In such a scenario, Central government spending has to increase to give a push to the GDP. The government had shown exemplary restraint in the last three years and had adhered to FD targets. If the current deviance is not made a habit then it is not such a bad deal and might in fact be good in the long run.