Budget Expressions
BUDGET is basically a balance sheet of the country in simple terms of receipts and expenditure, but as the finance of the country is not that simple, there is a slight confusion over the various words used in the Budget. Let us try to simplify the jargon.
The two major heads are Receipts and Expenditure.
Now Receipts are of two types - Revenue Receipts and Capital Receipts.
Again Revenue Receipts are two, tax revenue and non-tax revenue.
Capital Receipts are three types -
1) Recoveries of loans, 2) Other receipts, and 3) Borrowings and other liabilities
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Total Receipts = Revenue Receipts + Capital Receipts.
Similarly expenditure has two heads, plan expenditure and non-plan expenditure which are again sub-divided. Plan expenditure has two heads, on Revenue account and on Capital account and Non-plan Expenditure also includes two heads Revenue Account and Capital account. Revenue expenditure includes interest payments.
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.The total expenditure is the sum of plan expenditure and non-plan expenditure. Revenue expenditure is the sum of plan expenditure and non-plan expenditure on revenue account. Similarly capital expenditure is the sum of the plan and non-plan expenditure on capital account.
Coming to deficits - There are three kinds of deficits, Revenue Deficit, Fiscal Deficit and Primary deficit. There used to be a Budgetary Deficit which is not mentioned these days.
Revenue Deficit is the difference between Revenue Receipts and Revenue Expenditure
Fiscal deficit is the difference between the sum of (Revenue Receipts, Recoveries of loans and other receipts) and Total Expenditure.
Primary deficit is the difference between fiscal deficit and interest payments.
Now let us look at the Interim Budget of 2014-15
Rs. in Crores | |||
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Revenue Receipts (2+3) | 11,67,131 | |
2 | Tax Revenue | 9,86,417 | |
3 | Non-Tax Revenue | 1,80,714 | |
4 | Capital Receipts (5+6+7) | 5,96,083 | |
5 | Recoveries of loans | 10,527 | |
6 | Other receipts | 56,925 | |
7 | Borrowings & other liabilities | 5,28,631 | |
8 | Total Receipts (1+4) | 17,63,214 | |
9 | Non-Plan Expenditure (10+12) | 12,07,892 | |
10 | On revenue account | 11,07,781 | |
11 | Of which interest payments | 4,27,011 | |
12 | On capital account | 1,00,111 | |
13 | Plan expenditure (14+15) | 5,55,322 | |
14 | On revenue account | 4,42,273 | |
15 | On capital account | 1,13,049 | |
16 | Total Expenditure (9+13) | 17,63,214 | |
17 | Revenue Expenditure (10+14) | 15,50,054 | |
18 | Capital Expenditure (12+15) | 2,13,160 | |
19 | REVENUE DEFICIT (17-1) | 3,82,923 | |
20 | FISCAL DEFICIT 16-(1+5+6) | 5,28,631 | |
21 | Primary Deficit (20-11) | 1,01,620 | |
It can be seen that of the total revenue receipts of 11,67,131 crores, 9,86,417crores come from taxes (and this is only the taxes net to the centre). The capital receipts of about six lakh Crores includes borrowings and liabilities of over five lakh crores. Of the Non-plan expenditure of 12,07,892 crores, 4,27,011 crores account for interest payment. That is our interest liability is almost equal to our borrowings or are we borrowing just to pay interest? Out of an expenditure of above 18 lakhs crores, only about 2 lakh crores i.e, about 11% is spent on capital account.
The Poor Rich Indian: What does all this mean to the Indian who earns less than 50 rupees a day who is not considered poor by the great economist Dr. Rangarajan? And three out of ten Indians earn less than 50 rupees a day.