Thread by @GorwayGlobal

A Thread
Subject: #India's Union Govt Accounts
Headline: Dramatic IMPROVEMENT between the December and January position.
How?: Not as they would have you believe but by a standard accounting trick.
Read on to know more.
Hint: A ratio has a Numerator AND a Denominator.

At the end of Q3 of FY 2020-21, the Union Govt accounts reported the following: Of course the Jan 2021 numbers are for 10 months of the FY, while the Dec 2020 numbers are for 9 months of the FY. Even so, it's great improvement. Or is it?
Data Source:
cga.gov.in/index.aspx

The clue is in the change in the denominator. In Dec it was the Budget estimate, i.e the numbers estimated in the 2020-21 budget way back in March 2020. In Jan it is the REVISED estimate. So take Total receipts. They were 11.2 trllion as at Dec2020 (= 49.9% of what wa

Take Total receipts. In the 9 Months to Dec the actual number was 11.2 trillion (=49.9% of what was anticipated in the budget) In Jan it grew to 12.8 trillion, but that is now a respectable 80% of what is NOW forecast to be the year's total income for the Govt.

This table shows the extent to which the estimated numbers for the full year have been revised. this time in absolute numbers in Trillions of rupees (1 Trn = 1 Lakh crore)

So what's happened is this:
Expectations for how the Public Finances for 2020-21 will turn out have had to be revised in line with the hard reality that the economy has been battered.
Revenues revised downwards by about a quarter
Expenditure up by a sixth
Deficits doubled.