ISLAMABAD: A healthy Rs255 billion surplus offered by the provinces helped the federal government contain fiscal deficit at Rs852bn in first three quarters (July 2013-March 2014) of this fiscal year.

A senior finance ministry official said the Federal Board of Revenue had been able to collect Rs1565 billion in first nine months of the current fiscal year, leaving a gap of Rs910 billion for collection in the last quarter (April-June) of the current year.

He said the non-tax revenues stood at Rs791bn in first nine months of 2013-14 against a full year budgeted target of Rs822bn. As such, total revenues amounted to Rs2,356bn in the period under review.

Out of total revenues, an amount of Rs1018bn was transferred to provinces as part of federal divisible pool share in the first nine months.

On the other hand, total expenditure amounted to Rs2,408bn in July-March period. This included Rs900bn for interest payment and Rs250bn disbursements for the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) and Rs800bn for other heads.

The official said the government had to raise Rs512bn as bank borrowing and another Rs340bn as non-bank borrowing to finance fiscal deficit.

The federal government had set a target of Rs2,598bn for net revenues for 2013-14 and total expenditure at Rs3,591bn and set a deficit limit of Rs1,651bn for the full year to achieve a deficit level of 6.3pc of GDP. The target was later revised downward to 5.8pc of GDP as part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).