Goyal’s interim Budget is bigger than last year’s

Bucking the trend, the outgoing NDA government on Friday presented an 'interim Budget' which is bigger in size than last year’s general Budget.

The Budget size for 2019-20 was Rs 27.84 lakh crore as against Rs 24.50 lakh crore in 2018-19.

It pegged the gross borrowing at Rs 7.60 lakh crore and decided to draw heavily from the small savings funds in FY20 to finance its fiscal deficit. The estimated borrowing from small savings was a whopping Rs 1.30 lakh crore which is substantially higher from the estimated Rs 75,000 crore last year.

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The gross market borrowing will be a little above Rs 4.48 lakh crore, a marginal increase from last year.

A significant increase in gross borrowing this year was the result of the government’s across the board increase in sops from farmers to salaried class and unorganised sector.

The measure will, however, result in hardening of yields on the government bonds, which are already under pressure.