With expenditure lagging, Centre probably to make use of extra fiscal area to rein in deficit

With the nominal gross home product (GDP) coming in at a better stage of 17.6 per cent within the first advance estimates launched Friday than the FY22 price range stage of 14.4 per cent, the federal government is more likely to get extra fiscal headroom.
Economists, nonetheless, mentioned that given the lower-than-budgeted tempo of presidency expenditure thus far this fiscal, there’s a chance that this extra fiscal area might come in useful to current a decrease fiscal deficit reasonably than getting used to kick off any extra spending through the remaining quarter of FY22.
The Union Budget for 2021-22 had assumed a 14.4 per cent nominal GDP progress for the Budget Estimates. On Friday, the National Statistical Office (NSO) launched the primary advance estimates, which projected an actual GDP progress charge of 9.2 per cent and nominal GDP progress charge of 17.6 per cent for the monetary 12 months 2021-22.

As per estimates by economists, a better nominal GDP implies the federal government’s fiscal deficit may very well be round 6.5 per cent of the GDP as towards the budgeted goal of 6.8 per cent of the GDP. Or, in different phrases, it interprets into an extra fiscal area of round Rs 65,000 crore.
Experts, nonetheless, mentioned on condition that the federal government’s expenditure has stored a slower-than-budgeted tempo thus far, it’s unlikely to fulfill the goal within the remaining a part of the continued fiscal.
“The government has a higher fiscal space, which will help them meet the fiscal deficit target. The problem is that fiscal space may not mean much because as of now the government is underspending compared to its original budgeted amount. They can spend more (with the additional fiscal space). But by the end of the third quarter, government expenditure was only around half of the budgeted target, so the probability of them spending the remaining half of the budgeted amount in the last quarter is close to zero. Then this additional fiscal space doesn’t mean anything. What will happen is that it will end up showing a lower fiscal deficit. At the moment, they cannot use the additional fiscal space because they haven’t even met the original budgeted target,” Pronab Sen, former Chief Statistician of India mentioned.

According to the Controller General of Accounts, the federal government has spent 59.6 per cent of its complete budgeted quantity until November-end. In the year-ago interval, the Centre had spent 62.7 per cent of its budgeted expenditure in the identical interval.
It can be anticipated that the GDP estimate for presidency expenditure will get revised downwards for the October-March interval of FY22 going forward.
“The year-on-year growth projected by the NSO in the components of GDP in H2 FY2022 varies sharply from a muted 1.8% for private final consumption expenditure to a moderate 6.1% for gross fixed capital formation, to a rather high 13.9% for government final consumption expenditure. While we do expect the government of India’s spending to be back-ended in H2 FY2022, this is similar to the situation in H2 FY2021, based on which we anticipate a lower growth of GFCE (government final consumption expenditure) in the latter half of the current fiscal,” ICRA chief economist Aditi Nayar mentioned.
The parts of GDP get revised in a while on the time of second advance estimates and provisional estimates.

For occasion, authorities last consumption expenditure for 2020-21 was estimated at Rs 17.47 lakh crore (launched in January final 12 months), which was subsequently revised right down to Rs 15.87 lakh crore in second advance estimates, after which to Rs 15.86 lakh crore within the provisional estimates. The second advance estimates are launched by February-end, whereas provisional estimates are launched by May-end of the subsequent fiscal 12 months.
As per the primary advance estimates of GDP for FY22 launched Friday, on the expenditure aspect, authorities last consumption expenditure is seen 7.6 per cent greater than FY21 and 10.7 per cent greater than FY20.
Investment exercise, as mirrored by the buoyant gross mounted capital formation (GFCF), is seen rising 14.9 per cent in FY22 in contrast with FY21 and a pair of.6 per cent greater than pre-pandemic 12 months of FY20. Consumption demand, which is 55 per cent of the GDP, is estimated to stay sluggish, under the pre-Covid 12 months (2019-20) ranges.