-The Indian Express In his blog, S C Garg, former Economic Affairs secretary, has claimed that the actual fiscal deficit for the last financial year and the current one is more than a full percentage point higher than the official data. On the face of it, India’s fiscal deficit, which essentially maps how much money the Indian government has to borrow to make up the gap between its expenditure and its revenues,...
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Govt set for 20% cut in wasteful expenses -Harikishan Sharma
-The Indian Express “All ministries have been directed to reduce wasteful expenditure on travel, food and conferences by 20 percent. The CCIG has asked the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, to take necessary action in this regard,” a source told The Sunday Express. In an austerity move, the Union government has decided to reduce wasteful expenditure on items such as travel and food by 20 percent, it is learnt. A decision of...
More »Reality check: on govt projecting slower GDP growth
-The Hindu Misplaced optimism needs to cede ground to tangible policy interventions The government’s advance estimates for economic output and growth for the fiscal year ending in March may raise eyebrows, but only for the wrong reasons. The National Statistical Office (NSO) has estimated that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will expand by 5% in the 12-month period, in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s sharp downward revision last month in its...
More »Govt's FY20 spending seen lower by Rs 2 lakh crore; sharpest cut since FY15
-The Indian Express The Centre is set to cut annual budgetary expenditure for current fiscal by nearly Rs.2.2 lakh crore or 8 per cent from the Budget Estimate. With tax revenue growth lagging the required rate by a wide margin, the Centre is all set to cut the annual budgetary expenditure for the current financial year by nearly Rs 2.2 lakh crore or 8 per cent from the Budget Estimate (BE). The...
More »Mind the statistics gap -C Rangarajan & S Mahendra Dev
-The Indian Express Growing divergence between consumption expenditure estimates from NSO surveys and GDP data is too big to be pushed under the carpet Recently, we had expressed concerns that with the GDP growth rate falling in the post 2011-12 period, the decline in the poverty ratio would be slow. During 2011-12 to 2018-19, both GDP and agriculture growth were lower than in the earlier period. The terms of trade were not...
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