The Provisional Accounts for 2015-16 have been released by the Government of India on Tuesday (31.5.2016).
Fiscal Deficit in 2015-16 stands at 3.9% of GDP as estimated both in BE and RE of 2015-16. This is a significant improvement over the Fiscal Deficit of 4.1% in 2014-15 and 4.7% in 2013-14.
Revenue Deficit has also shown significant improvement due to increase in Capital Expenditure of the Central Government. Revenue Deficit which stood at 3.2% of GDP in 2013-14 has improved to 2.9% in 2014-15 and 2.5% in 2015-16.
The Capital expenditure has increased substantially to Rs 2,35,253 crore in 2015-16 which is an increase of Rs. 38,572 crore over 2014-15 and Rs.47,578 crore over 2013-14.
Similarly, the Plan Expenditure in 2015-16 is Rs. 4,71,081 crores which is higher by Rs. 8437 crores over the previous year despite substantial increase in share of tax devolution to the States.
The Gross tax collection at Rs. 14,56,887 crore has shown 17% growth as compared to Fiscal 2014-15. The Gross tax collection has improved to 10.74% of GDP (tax-GDP ratio) in 2015-16 as compared to 10.06% in 2013-14.
The devolution of tax collections to State Governments in 2015-16 is Rs..5,06,193 crore, which shows an increase of Rs. 1,68,385 crore over the devolution of Rs.3,37,808 crore in 2014-15. In 2013-14 the tax share devolution to the States was Rs. 3,18,230 crore.
Non Tax Receipts are Rs. 2,50,744 crore this year as compared to Rs..1,97,766 crore last year and Rs.1,98,865 crore in 2013-14.
The above highlights clearly indicate that the fiscal parameters are very robust and in line with the Budget projections. Together with GDP growth of 7.9% in Q 4 of 2015-16 and 7.6% in the whole of 2015-16, India continues to remain a bright spot in world economy with robust macro economic and fiscal parameters.
