Urban Mirror Correspondent
New Delhi, December 29: The Lok Gathbandhan Party (LGP) today expressed concern over the state of economy in the country. The LGP criticising the NDA government for failing to maintain fiscal discipline, said at the end of November 2018 the government’s fiscal deficit has touched 114.8 which is quite alarming.
The spokesman of the party said here on Saturday that gap between the target set for financial year 2019 and the final tally could widen leaving the overall financial situation quite messy. The spokesman of LGP headed by former Secretary Government of India Vijay Shankar Pandey, had repeatedly pointed out about flux in fiscal situation in the past but no corrective measures had been taken. The spokesman said economic condition under the NDA government is virtually in the red as during the last five years its fiscal management has proved disastrous. The spokesman said it is for this reason the BJP has been trying to change the political narratives to religious issues during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The spokesman has however called upon the people to not to fall into trap of the BJP and take account of the development performance of the NDA government.
The spokesman said the NDA government had budgeted fiscal deficit of Rs 6.24 lakh crore, or 3.3 per cent of the GDP, for FY19. Fiscal deficit for April-November stood at Rs 7.16 lakh crore, or 114.8 per cent of the target. It is more than the 112 per cent recorded in the same period last fiscal, the spokesman said and added fiscal slippage will persist in coming months as there are several risks to meeting the budgeted targets for revenues and expenditures, with one of the predominant concerns arising from a possible shortfall in indirect tax collections, despite the seasonal pickup in tax revenues in the last quarter of every fiscal. The spokesman said further said according to media report total expenditure up to November was 66.1 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs 24.42 lakh crore, suggesting that while the expenditure largely remained on course, subdued tax receipts largely contributed toward bloating the deficit. The spokesman said the government’s claim that it would meet the fiscal deficit target for the financial year is just far-fetched.
