-The Hindu ‘It moved from a revenue surplus to a revenue deficit State’ Chennai: Tamil Nadu’s fiscal indicators have deteriorated drastically from 2012-13 to 2018-19 and most borrowings in the recent years have gone to fund its revenue deficit, instead of Capital Expenditure, the 15th Finance Commission report tabled in the Parliament recently said. Tamil Nadu moved from a “revenue surplus” to a “revenue deficit” State after 2012-13, it noted. A revenue deficit...

-The Indian Express Somanathan said the government is trying to reach the target group of unskilled and semi-skilled workers through increased government expenditure in the construction sector. Working with a “constrained resource envelope” in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic ahead of Budget 2021-22, the government essentially had to make a choice between two policy options: handouts and Capital Expenditure. “We chose capex,” TV Somanathan, Expenditure Secretary, Ministry of Finance, told The...

-The Hindu Even with closures, capex exceeded plan, says Expenditure Secretary Expenditure Secretary T.V. Somanathan said the government has been very careful and realistic in its expenditure and receipts projections for 2021-22, and that its push for Capital Expenditure is the largest ever over a two-year period. Excerpts: * You have called it an expansionary budget, but overall spending is just about ₹33,000 crore in 2021-22 over this year’s revised estimates (RE). Also,...

-Hindustan Times Despite enhanced commitments across spheres, the government has spent less this year than it did last year Typically, when a crisis hits, the expectation is that the Centre — which has more revenue-raising abilities than states — will take the lead in preparing a fiscal road map, loosen its purse strings and raise expenditure significantly. The Covid-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its scale and impact. But this is also when...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...