New Delhi, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday expressed confidence that the government will not only meet the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent, but it will do even better than that.
He said while there were perceptions that the target will not be met, he was hopeful that his government will not only meet the target but “will actually do better than our budgeted fiscal deficit”.
Goyal said this would be achieved on the back of robust revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which, he said, would cross Rs 13 lakh crore for the whole year.
According to government data, India’s budgetary fiscal deficit for the two month period of April and May stood at 55.3 per cent — Rs 3.45 lakh crore — of the full year’s target of Rs 6.24 lakh crore.
Earlier, the Finance Minister had assured that the government was monitoring and working to ensure that fiscal deficit will be maintained at 3.3 per cent despite this being an election year.
“We will meet the fiscal deficit target despite this being a year when traditionally — as you would find in history be it 2013-14 or 2007 to 2009 period — fiscal deficit, macroeconomic stability, good governence all were thrown to the wind for political exigencies,” he had said.
