Govt to reduce fiscal deficit to 3 pc in 2021-21, eliminate primary deficit

The government Friday came out with a roadmap to reduce the fiscal deficit, the gap between total expenditure and revenue, to 3 per cent of the GDP by 2020-21, and eliminate primary deficit.

As per the medium term fiscal policy cum fiscal policy strategy statement tabled in Parliament, the government is aiming to contain the fiscal deficit at 3.4 per cent in the current as well as next fiscal, and then bring it down to 3 per cent in 2020-21.

Presenting the Union Budget, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said that the government would have maintained fiscal deficit at 3.3 per cent for year 2018-19 and taken further steps to consolidate fiscal deficit in year 2019-20.

"However, considering the need for income support to farmers we have provided Rs 20,000 crore in 2018-19 RE (revised estimates) and Rs 75,000 crore in 2019-20 BE (budget estimates).

"If we exclude this, the fiscal deficit would have been less than 3.3 per cent for 2018-19 and less than 3.1 per cent for year 2019-20," he said ..