Government expects Rs 69,000 crore dividend from RBI in 2019-20

The finance ministry expects Rs 69,000 crore dividend from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the next financial year, sources said.

The government has projected to mobilise Rs 82,911.56 crore as dividend or surplus from the RBI, nationalised banks and financial institutions during 2019-20.

If the central board of the RBI approves transfer of Rs 28,000 crore requested by the government as interim dividend for the current fiscal, the total surplus transfer by the central bank would be Rs 68,000 crore in 2018-19.

The RBI, which follows July-June financial year, has already transferred Rs 40,000 crore in the current fiscal.

The receipt from various sources, including RBI dividend, helps the government meet fiscal deficit target.

In the Interim Budget 2019-20, the government has projected a fiscal deficit target of 3.4 per cent for the next financial year 2019-20.

The government also came out with a road map 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.

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Primary deficit refers to the deficit left after subtracting interest payments from the fiscal deficit.

In Budget Estimate (BE) 2018-19, the primary deficit was calculated at Rs 48,481 crore, which is 0.3 per cent of GDP. Primary deficit in Revised Estimate (RE) 2018-19 is expected to be Rs 46,828 crore, which works out to be 0.2 per cent of the GDP.

The document projects nil primary deficit for 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years.

The reduction of the primary deficit is a positive sign as it shows reduced usage of borrowed funds to pay for the existing liabilities, the document said.

It also said there has been a slight decrease in gross tax revenue estimates for 2018-19 to about Rs 23,067 crore, mainly on account of lesser-than-anticipated collection of the GST.

The government further said the gross tax revenue as a per cent of GDP is expected to increase to 12.1 per cent of GDP in 2019-20 and stabilise at that level in 2020-21 before climbing up to a level of 12.2 per cent of GDP. 

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