Fiscal deficit pegged higher at 6.9%

New Delhi: India's fiscal deficit is projected to be higher at 6.9 per cent this fiscal as against 6.8 per cent estimated earlier, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasising the need for stronger and sustainable growth through public investment. The marginal rise in fiscal deficit for the current fiscal is against the expectations of the market and experts who expected slight decline in the numbers on the back rising tax collections.

"The fiscal deficit in 2022-23 is estimated at 6.4 per cent of GDP, which is consistent with the broad path of fiscal consolidation announced by me last year to reach a fiscal deficit level below 4.5 per cent by 2025-26. While setting the fiscal deficit level in 2022-23, I am conscious of the need to nurture growth, through public investment, to become stronger and sustainable," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament, said on Tuesday.

Further, she said, the revised fiscal deficit, the gap between expenditure and revenue, in the current year, is estimated at 6.9 per cent of GDP as against 6.8 per cent projected in the Budget Estimates previously.

The fiscal deficit of the government for 2022-23 is estimated to be Rs16,61,196 crore. The Revised Estimates for 2021-22 indicate a fiscal deficit of Rs 15,91,089 crore as against the Budget Estimates of Rs 15,06,812 crore. The Finance Minister stated that the outlay for capital expenditure in the Union Budget is once again being stepped up sharply by 35.4 per cent from Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the current year to Rs 7.50 lakh crore in 2022-23.