The central government's fiscal deficit for April-June 2022 stood at ₹3,51,871 crore, which is about 21.2% of its full financial year target, the data released by the Controller General of Accounts shows.

During the same period last year, India's fiscal deficit was ₹2,74,245 crore, about 18.2% of the FY22 target. During the previous Jan-March period, the Centre's fiscal deficit was ₹2.71 lakh crore.

The Centre's full-year target for fiscal deficit stands at ₹16,61,196 crore.

The revenue-expenditure data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) shows that for June 2022 alone, the fiscal deficit was ₹1,47,950 crore, which was hit because the Centre announced an excise duty cut on petrol and diesel on May 21.

To control the rising inflation in the economy, the Central government announced a reduction in the central excise duty by cutting petrol prices by ₹8 per litre and diesel prices by ₹6 per litre in May. It also announced a ₹200 subsidy on LPG gas cylinders. The excise cut on fuel and subsidy outgo on LPG is expected to cost over ₹1 lakh crore to the Centre.

To offset some impact, the Centre on July 1 imposed a special additional excise duty of ₹6 per litre on exports of petrol and ₹13 per litre on exports of diesel. The special additional excise duty of ₹6 per litre was imposed on the exports of aviation turbine fuel, too. On July 20, however, the export tax of ₹6 per litre on petrol was removed, while the windfall tax on diesel and ATF exports was cut by ₹2 a litre.

In total, the government received ₹5,96,040 crore up to June 2022, comprising ₹5,05,898 crore tax revenue (net to Centre), ₹62,160 crore of non-tax revenue and ₹27,982 crore of non-debt capital receipts up to June 2022. The receipts for June are 26.1% of corresponding budget estimates for 2022-23 of the total receipts.

Fiscal deficit in June

Fiscal deficit for Apr-June at 3.5 lakh cr; 21% of FY23 target