This means that the Government has already exhausted more than 80 per cent of the budgeted fiscal deficit of Rs 79,955 crore for the full year. With three more months to account for, it is estimated that the fiscal deficit might be in the range of Rs 85,000 to Rs 90,000 crore at the end of the financial year.

The fiscal deficit during April-December 1998 was Rs 73,434 crore. However, after taking out the small savings which were of the order of Rs 19,578 crore, the fiscal deficit for comparative purposes during the period worked out to be Rs 53,856 crore.

The main reasons for increase in the fiscal deficit are expenditure overruns on account of post-budgetary commitments like Kargil conflict, general elections and increase in dearness allowance for Government employees and pensioners. On the receipt side, although the revenue collections have moved up by 15.43 per cent to Rs 1,15,075 crore at the end of third quarter, the performance on the disinvestment front has remained dismal.

The Government has been able to raise only Rs 1,383 crore from sale of shares of public sector undertaking by December 31, as against the ambitious target of Rs 10,000 crore for 1999-2000. Although during the last year, the Government could raise only Rs 221 crore from disinvestment by the end of December 1998, it managed to build a pipeline which yielded about Rs 9,000 crore. Currently, with the disinvestment of only Modern Foods in the pipeline as far as the current year is concerned, the receipts are not likely to cross Rs 1,500-crore mark.

On the expenditure side, the Non-Plan outlay during the three quarters amounted to Rs 1,40,683 crore which worked out to be 68 per cent of the budgeted amount. This, however, cannot be compared with last year's figures on the Non-Plan side as the expenditure during the current financial year is net of small savings.

On the Plan side, the expenditure during the April-December 1999 went up to Rs 49,577 crore representing an increase of 23.4 per cent over the expenditure in the corresponding period last fiscal.

The revenue deficit at the end of third quarter was Rs 44,917 crore, which was 83 per cent of total estimated for the full year in the budget.Although the Government had planned a primary surplus of Rs 8,045 crore in the budget for 1999-2000, it ended the third quarter with a primary deficit of Rs 11,329 crore. As per the current indications, it is unlikely that there would be any primary surplus during 1999-2000.