UNION FINANCES UNDER STRAIN

The Union government earned only

` 50,304 crore from disinvestment in FY20, against the Budget target of ` 1.05 lakh crore. This was later revised downwards to ` 65,000 crore. The government failed to push asset sales due to poor market conditions

Tax revenues were 90 per cent of revised estimates for the year

Capital expenditure was 97 per cent of revised estimates. The government held back on capital spending to bring fiscal deficit under control

Fiscal deficit hit a seven-year high of 4.6 per cent of GDP (as against the revised target of 3.8 per cent of GDP)

The reason was shortfall in revenues in the wake of slowing GDP growth. Excluding agriculture and community services, real gross value added grew 1.1 per cent in fourth quarter of FY20, the lowest since 1998, when quarterly data started becoming available