Key vote on account targets to be maintained in the full yearly budget

livemint.com:

Mint on the condition of anonymity. The finance ministry has already started preparations for the presentation of the full budget, and various ministries have been asked to present fresh assessments of their fund requirements for the next fiscal. Ministries have been asked to give details of schemes that need to be expanded next year and those which could be trimmed or axed to make way for any new scheme the next government may like to introduce.

"As the full budget preparations start for next year, the effort is to work within the fiscal space provided in the interim budget. So, the fiscal deficit target of 5.1% (of the GDP) for FY25 would be maintained. However, within the constraints, there would be space for new schemes, if any, as the outgo for these would be spread over several years and not just FY2025," said one of the people mentioned above.

The general elections are set to be held in April-May and, as things stand, the full-year budget is likely to be presented in July to give a detailed roadmap for income and spending for the next fiscal. "The government can announce major schemes without deviating from its proposed fiscal path," the person quoted above said. A finance ministry spokesperson didn’t respond to emailed queries.

In its interim budget for FY2025, the government gave a boost to capital expenditure by raising the allocation on infrastructure projects by 11% to ₹11.11 trillion for the year starting 1 April 2024. The government has proposed fiscal deficit targets of 5.1% for FY25 and 4.5% or less by FY2026 continuing on its path of fiscal consolidation and bringing down the deficit to a 3% level over the next few years while eliminating revenue deficit. In addition, the Centre’s borrowing target for