The fiscal deficit would be brought down to below 4.5% by FY 2025-26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday.
She also said that tax receipts for the next fiscal are budgeted at Rs 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 Rs 11.8 lakh crore, FM Sitharaman said while presenting the Union Budget for 2023-24 in Lok Sabha.
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 6.4% of the GDP for the current financial year.
The fiscal deficit or the gap between expenditure and revenue for FY 2022-23 is estimated to be Rs 16,61,196 crore. The country’s fiscal deficit was projected higher at 6.9% for FY 2021-22 as against 6.8% estimated earlier.
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 minister also announced a new savings scheme, Mahila Samman Savings Certificate, applicable for two years till 2025 with a maximum deposit limit of Rs 2 lakh and an interest rate of 7.5%.
She added that 50-year interest-free loans to state governments have to be spent on capital expenditure within 2023-24.
The minister announced that the monthly income scheme limit would be doubled to Rs 9 lakh and Rs 15 lakh for joint accounts. The finance minister said that indirect tax proposals would boost green mobility and electric vehicles (EVs).
