Budget 2023 | Fiscal deficit to be brought down to below 4.5% by 2025-26: FM Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister announcing the new tax slabs. Photo: Screenshot via YouTube/Sansad TV.

Fiscal deficit would be brought down to below 4.5% by 2025-26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on February 1.

She also said that tax receipts for the next fiscal are budgeted at ₹23.3 lakh crore and States would be allowed 3.5% of GDP as fiscal deficit. To finance the fiscal deficit in 2023-24, net market borrowing from dated securities is estimated at ₹11.8 lakh crore, Ms. Sitharaman said while presenting the Union Budget for 2023-24 in the Lok Sabha.

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She retained the fiscal deficit target of 6.4% in the revised estimate for FY2022-23 and reduced it to 5.9% for the next fiscal. The government had pegged the fiscal deficit at at 6.4% of the GDP for the current financial year.

The fiscal deficit or the gap between expenditure and revenue for 2022-23 is estimated to be ₹16,61,196 crore. The country’s fiscal deficit was projected higher at 6.9% for 2021-22 as against 6.8% estimated earlier.

The Revised Estimates for 2021-22 indicate a fiscal deficit of ₹15,91,089 crore as against the Budget Estimates of ₹15,06,812 crore. The Minister also announced a new savings scheme, Mahila Samman Savings Certificate, for two years to 2025 with a maximum deposit limit of ₹2 lakh and an interest rate of 7.5%.

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She added that 50-year interest-free loans to State governments have to be spent on capital expenditure within 2023-24.

The Finance Minister announced that monthly income scheme limit would be doubled to ₹9 lakh and ₹15 lakh for joint accounts. Ms. Sitharaman said that indirect tax proposals would boost green mobility and electric vehicles (EVs).