The Centre's fiscal deficit in April, 2011 worked out to be 18.1 per cent of the Budget estimates as compared to 14.2 per cent in the year-ago period, on account of less revenue collection and increase in non-plan expenditure.
In absolute terms, fiscal deficit, or the gap between overall expenditure and receipts, stood at Rs 74,611 crore (Rs 746.11 billion) in the first month of the current fiscal, against Rs 53,993 crore (Rs 539.93 billion) in the same period last financial year (2010-11).
The government has fixed a Budget estimate of Rs 4.12 lakh crore (Rs 4.12 trillion) as fiscal deficit for 2011-12.
In April, total revenue receipts stood at Rs 6,880 crore (Rs 68.8 billion), or 0.9 per cent, of the Budget estimates, an official statement said.
This is far below the 1.9 per cent achieved during the first month of 2011.
In April, the net tax receipts of the government stood at Rs 3,774 crore (Rs 37.74 billion) and total expenditure at Rs 87,130 crore (Rs 871.3 billion), it said.
Non-Plan expenditure of Rs 70,123 in April was 8.6 per cent of the Budget estimate.
In April last year, non-Plan expenditure stood at 6.6 per cent of the Budget estimate.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in his 2011-12 Budget speech had pegged the fiscal deficit for the current year at 4.6 per cent.
Speaking to media on Tuesday, he had exuded confidence of achieving the target.
"This year also I will be able to keep the fiscal deficit target," Mukherjee had said on a day, when data revealed that fiscal deficit in 2010-11 was 4.7 per cent, lower than the revised estimate of 5.1 per
As per the latest data, the non-tax revenue in April stood at Rs 3,774 crore (Rs 37.74 billion).
Meanwhile, the revenue deficit, which is the gap between revenue expenditure like salaries and revenue receipts, during the first month of this fiscal stood at 19.7 per cent of the Budget estimates as compared to 18.3 per cent in April, 2010.
In absolute terms, revenue deficit stood at Rs 60,615 crore (Rs 606.15 billion) in the first month of 2011-2, against Rs 50,638 crore (Rs 506.38 billion) in April, 2010.
The government contained its fiscal deficit at 4.7 per cent of gross domestic product during 2010-11, much lower than the revised estimate of 5.1 per cent, on the back of higher-than-expected realisation from auctioning of 3G and BWA spectrum.
The deficit finally stood at Rs 3,69,043 crore (Rs 3,690.43 billion) for the fiscal ended March, 2011, constituting 4.69 per cent of GDP at Rs 78,75,627 crore (Rs 78,756.27 billion).
This was 92 per cent of the revised estimate of Rs 4,00,998 crore (Rs 4,009.98 billion), showing an improvement on the fiscal front.
The Centre also cut its revenue deficit, an excess of the current expenditure over the current receipts, to 3.11 per cent of GDP against the projected 3.4 per cent.
It was lower than even 3.2 per cent, according to the road map given by the 13th Finance Commission.
