Mid-year accounts show receipts outpacing expenditure. Discuss the role of in-year fiscal monitoring in achieving fiscal consolidation targets.

Each month the Union Government publishes its accounts, showing receipts and spending as a share of the Budget Estimates (BE). By September 2026, receipts had reached 50.3% of BE and expenditure 47.7% [1]. This is the mid-year check on the 4.3%-of-GDP fiscal deficit target [2]. Watching the numbers through the year is necessary for consolidation, but it is not enough on its own.

Role of in-year monitoring

• Early warning: the H1 gap between spending and receipts (about ₹7.14 lakh crore) is roughly 42% of the full-year deficit target of ₹16,95,768 crore [1][3]. So far, consolidation is on track.
• Pacing expenditure: spending jumped from 38.9% of BE in August [4] to 47.7% in September [1]. Monthly tracking helps avoid a rush of spending in March and money left unused.
• Quality of spending: interest of ₹6,46,010 crore is about a quarter of H1 spending [1]. Monitoring shows whether the ₹12.22 lakh crore capex target is keeping pace [2].
• Accountability: public data lets Parliament scrutinise spending and makes the Revised Estimates more realistic.
• Federal predictability: devolution to States rose ₹67,658 crore over last year, to ₹6,99,409 crore [1]. This helps States plan their budgets.

Limits: why H1 looks better than it is

• Receipts come early: the RBI's surplus transfer arrives in Q1 and swells the Centre's cash balance [5]. H2 gets no such one-time boost.
• Spending comes late: about ₹28 lakh crore of budgeted spending remains for H2, which is more than was spent in H1 [1][6].
• Hidden borrowing: the CAG found off-budget borrowing through IRFC and PFC that stayed outside the deficit figures [7]. It also found that cess money not moved into its designated funds made the deficits look smaller [8].
• Committed costs: interest takes about 40% of revenue receipts [6], so there is little room to change course.

Way forward

• Publish extra-budgetary borrowing alongside each month's accounts, as the CAG urged [7].
• Anchor policy to debt, bringing it down from 55.6% of GDP to 50±1% by 2031 [2].
• Use mid-year data to move unspent revenue money towards capex.

In-year monitoring turns an annual target into a path that can be tracked month by month. Combined with full disclosure and a credible debt anchor, it can make the 4.3% target achievable and keep money available for development, in line with intergenerational equity and SDG 8.