FISCAL PERFORMANCE INDEX

GS 3: Economy

Why in News?

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has launched a Fiscal Performance Index (FPI) to assess state and central budgets.

Fiscal Performance index:

  • the Index incorporates qualitative assessments of revenue expenditure, capital expenditure, revenues, fiscal prudence and the level of public debt arrive at a more holistic picture of fiscal performance than the fiscal deficit to GDP ratio.
  • As an example the index will consider expenditure on infrastructure, education, healthcare and other social sectors beneficial for economic growth compared to other revenue expenditure.
  • It will also consider tax revenues a more sustainable source of revenues for the government as compared to one-time income sources.
  • The CII has used this index to analyse state and central budgets from 2004-05 to 2016-17.
  • The study found that despite improvement a reduction in the fiscal deficit between FY13 and FY18, the overall performance of the budget has been remained steady with improvements only in FY16 and FY17. This is largely due to moderation in the revenue, capital expenditure and and net tax revenues indices.
  • The analysis also shows that the combine performance of all state budgets has improved despite worsening of fiscal deficit numbers because of improvements in revenue and capital expenditure indices.
  • The study also points out that relatively high income states including Gujarat, Haryana and Maharashtra which are presumed to have good fiscal health because of low fiscal deficit to GDP ratio do not perform well on the composite FPI because of poor expenditure and revenue quality compared to other states.
  • Other states including, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have done well on the FPI because of their good performance in revenue and capital expenditure indices.

Recommendations:

  • The government should attempt to broaden the tax base
  • Increase investments in education and healthcare as well as maintenance of assets and well as increase investments in infrastructure, affordable housing and encourage public sector undertakings to also increase capital expenditure by limiting dividends to the government.
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