The Centre has targeted receipts of over ₹1-lakh crore from the Reserve Bank of India and public sector banks (PSBs) as dividend and surplus in 2019-20.
This, along with higher proceeds from disinvestment of state-run firms, is expected to help the government improve its fiscal deficit a tad to 3.3 per cent from the earlier Interim Budget target of 3.4 per cent.
The Budget has pegged the dividend and surplus of the RBI, nationalised banks and financial institutions at ₹1,06,041.56. This is almost double the Budget estimate of ₹54,817.25 crore in 2018-19.
The revised estimate for last fiscal had targeted the dividend and surplus at ₹74,140.37 crore. Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg later said that the RBI is expected to pay ₹90,000 crore as dividend this fiscal. This would be the highest ever payout of the kind by the central bank.
In February, the RBI had approved an interim dividend of ₹28,000 crore to the Centre.
The RBI pays a dividend every year to the government, based on its profits from activities such as printing of notes and other investments. This is typically paid in August but due to fiscal considerations, the RBI has been announcing interim dividends in the last two years.
In recent years, it has also turned into a bone of contention between the two with the Finance Ministry hoping for more dividend as it tries to find funds for its various schemes and bridge shortfalls in revenue.
This fiscal, too, the Finance Ministry is hoping to get some surplus transferred from the RBI’s reserves. A committee headed by former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan is already looking into the issue and is expected to meet again later this month and finalise its recommendations.