The Centre will borrow Rs 4.42 lakh crore in the first half of the 2019-’20 financial year, Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said on Friday. The figure, called gross borrowing, is the total public debt that the government is liable to pay.
The net borrowing, which does not include repayments of past loans, has been projected at Rs 3.4 lakh crore for the April-September 2019 period, Garg added, according to PTI.
While presenting the Union Budget on February 1, the government pegged the gross borrowing at Rs 7.1 lakh crore for the entire 2019-’20 financial year. This was higher than the Rs 5.7 lakh crore it had projected in 2018-’19.
Garg also said the government will stick to the fiscal deficit target of 3.4% of the Gross Domestic Product, which it had set in the Union Budget in February. The Centre had set a fiscal deficit target of 3.3% for the 2018-’19 financial year, but exceeded it.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance said in a press release that the monthly account of the government till February 2019 showed that it received Rs 13.37 lakh crore in revenue. Of this, Rs 10.93 lakh crore was tax revenue, Rs 1.71 lakh crore non-tax revenue and Rs 71,662 crore was non-debt capital receipts.
The ministry added that the Centre has transferred Rs 5.96 lakh crore to state governments as devolution of share of taxes in the April 2018 to February 2019 period. This is Rs 67,043 crore higher than in the corresponding period of the 2017-’18 financial year, it said.
The government has incurred total expenditure of Rs 21.88 lakh crore from April 2018 to February 2019, the Ministry of Finance said. Of this, Rs 19.15 lakh crore is revenue expenditure, and Rs 2.73 lakh crore capital expenditure.
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