The Centre’s accounts
The Government dimension asks whether the Union government is keeping to its budget. It follows the Centre’s receipts, spending and deficit month by month against the year’s estimate and against the same month in past years, and the deficit against GDP over the years. It covers the Centre only: state governments, which together spend more, are not in these figures (CAG’s state accounts are parked). It makes no forecast of the year’s outturn.
Code: compute/economy_government.py, publish/economy_government.py, steps/economy_government.py. Bundles: economy/government/facts, monthly, annual, heads, required, and pace_<line> for the fiscal deficit, capital spending, net tax revenue, total spending, revenue receipts, interest and major subsidies. Tests: pipeline/tests/test_economy_government.py. Pages: /economy/government/ and its receipts, spending and deficit pages.
Inputs
cga_union_accounts: the Controller General of Accounts’ “Union Government Accounts at a Glance”, one statement a month from December 1998 (released about the last working day of the following month). Each line gives the year-to-date actual, the year’s estimate, the actual as a percentage of that estimate, and the same percentage a year earlier. CGA measures against the budget estimate (BE) from April to December and the revised estimate (RE) from January to March; the pages say which. 26 statements are absent from CGA’s own archive (most Octobers before 2016, Novembers before 2006, April 2014, July 2016); those months stay blank. Capital spending and revenue spending are printed as lines from April 2017; before that CGA split spending into plan and non-plan. Major subsidies are printed from September 2016.cga_dashboard_heads: CGA’s Monthly Accounts Dashboard (DAMA) workbook, tax and spending heads from April 2014. It lags the monthly statement by months, so only complete financial years are used, and the pages name the latest one.mospi_nas: nominal GDP by financial year, latest vintage. The 2011-12 base (its back series before FY12) and the 2022-23 base (from FY23) are kept as separate columns and never joined, because GDP levels differ between bases.
All are Government of India publications, used with attribution. No RBI, FBIL, FIMMDA, CCIL or AMFI figures enter. A month’s statement counts once the month after it has ended (as_of), so the build never uses a statement before CGA could have published it.
Measures
- Pace against the estimate. For each line, CGA’s own percentage of the estimate at each month of the financial year. The comparison is the median, lowest and highest percentage at the same month in the previous ten financial years held for that month (fewer where the line or the archive is shorter; the count is published as
n_past). Comparing a month with the same month in past years avoids reading the calendar of tax instalments and transfers as news. - Growth needed for the rest of the year. For receipts and spending lines: (estimate − year to date) ÷ (last year’s March total − last year’s year to date at the same month) − 1. It is set against growth so far (year to date against the same months a year earlier) and the growth the estimate implies for the whole year (estimate ÷ last year’s March total − 1). Last year’s March total is CGA’s provisional figure for that year.
- Twelve-month flows. Monthly flows are differences of year-to-date totals within a financial year (April is its own total). Twelve-month sums need twelve consecutive months held; a missing statement blanks every window that contains it. From them: growth on the previous twelve months, interest as a share of revenue receipts, and capital spending as a share of total spending.
- Financial years. The March statement’s year-to-date total for each line; the budget estimate the year began with (the first BE printed that year); the outturn against it in percent; and shares of GDP on each base. “Kept to the budget” counts years whose fiscal deficit ended more than 0.5% above the first budget estimate.
- Heads. DAMA’s March totals by financial year: gross tax by head (the Centre’s GST is CGST, IGST and UTGST; service tax, securities transaction tax, the GST compensation cess and other taxes are grouped) as shares of gross tax, and spending on interest, capital assets, defence, pensions, major subsidies, the states’ tax share (devolution) and grants to states, in ₹ lakh crore.
The answer and the scorecard
The headline is mechanical. Capital spending is “ahead of the usual pace” when its share of the estimate exceeds the past median at the same month by more than a point; tax revenue is “behind the budget” when the growth it needs for the rest of the year exceeds growth so far by more than three points. These are editorial rules, not fitted thresholds. The scorecard places six readings against their own history (economy_common.history_place): twelve-month capital spending growth and its share of spending, twelve-month net tax growth, interest’s share of revenue receipts, and the fiscal and primary deficits as shares of GDP on the 2011-12 base, which runs furthest back.
What the numbers cannot tell
These are provisional cash accounts; the audited Finance Accounts come later and can differ. Spending that is due but not paid (arrears, off-budget borrowing by public bodies) does not appear. A share of the estimate rising faster than usual can mean faster spending or a smaller estimate. The deficit as a share of GDP depends on the GDP base, which is why both are shown.