New Delhi, June 8 -- The Centre capped the fiscal deficit target at 4.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025-26, meeting its post-pandemic fiscal consolidation goal. While this suggests the government is committed towards fiscal discipline, the math behind the achievement reveals a worrying trend-sharp cuts in expenditure, while the subsidy bill shot up amid the West Asia war.

One of the biggest pressures from the West Asia war was the fertilizer subsidy bill. With just one month of the war's impact, the government's FY26 subsidy bill reached 113% of the revised estimate, complicating the fiscal math. At Rs.2.1 trillion, this was also the highest fertilizer subsidy since the initial impact of the Ukraine war in FY23, underlining Indi...