The Union budget for 2023-24 is rather well placed on fiscal math

Total public debt will at most reach 86.9% of GDP by 31 March after three high-spend years and onshoring of off-budget items

All credit goes to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team for extraordinary fiscal performance over three years of relentless pressure from the pandemic followed by the Ukraine war. During these three years, past off-budget borrowings were on-shored at the Centre, and two-thirds of the population saw their entitlement under the Food Security Act doubled in quantum, at zero incremental cost over 28 months in all. The doubling stands withdrawn as of January 2023, but the original quantum will be zero priced until December 2023.

During the current fiscal year closing on 31 March 2023, the Central fiscal deficit has held at 6.4% as budgeted, despite additional expenditure of 2 trillion on food and fertilizer subsidies. It helped that nominal) GDP for the current year—at 3273.08 trillion by the first advance estimate FAE)—was higher by 215 trillion than the 258 million projected in Union Budget 2022.