ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Finance has released the Fiscal Operations Data according to which the overall fiscal deficit from July-September dropped to 0.8 per cent (Rs438.5 billion from Rs715bn) of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
According to the data, the deficit in the first quarter of 2019-20 was 0.7pc; in the fiscal year 2020-21, it was recorded at 1.1pc, and in 2018-19, it stood at 1.4pc.
Regarding the revenue, Fiscal’s data indicated that in the first quarter the total revenue was recorded to be at 3.4pc of GDP in comparison to last year where it stood at 3.2pc.
According to the fiscal operations, the government has controlled the budget deficit by improving revenue collection and controlling expenditures.
The healthy cashback from provinces helped bring down the deficit that originally stood at 1.3pc. The total cashback from provinces was recorded to be Rs.277bn cash surplus. Punjab contributed Rs.183bn, followed by Sindh’s Rs.60bn and Balochistan’s Rs.36bn. On the other hand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa overspent Rs. 2.8bn and was not able to provide any surplus.