The six budgets of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government presented between 1998-99 and 2003-04 have seen massive additional resource mobilisation of Rs 29,532 crore (Rs 295.32 billion).

The growth in revenue has, however, just about kept pace with higher government expenditure.

The additional revenue mobilisation saw its peak in 2002-03 in Yashwant Sinha's budget with his new tax measures yielding a whopping Rs 10,500 crore. Even in previous years, Sinha has been raising handsome amounts of revenue -- Rs 7,425 crore in 1998-99, Rs 9,334 crore in 1999-2000 and Rs 4,885 crore in 2000-01.

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The only exception was in 2001-02 when his measures resulted in a revenue loss of Rs 2,951 crore. In comparison, Jaswant Singh raised only Rs 339 crore in his debut budget this fiscal which was marginally higher than what P Chidambaram mobilised in 1997-98.

Revenue receipts have gone up 89.6 per cent from Rs 1,33,886 crore in 1997-98 (the year when Chidambaram presented his budget as finance minister in the United Front government) to Rs 2,53,935 crore budget estimate for 2003-04.

The government's tax revenue increased at a marginally higher rate of 92 per cent to Rs 1,84,169 crore. However, the government expenditure too has grown over 89 per cent during the period, from Rs 2,32,053 crore to Rs 4,38,795 crore.

As a result, the fiscal deficit has more than doubled from Rs 73,204 crore to Rs 1,53,637 crore between 1997-98 and 2003-04. A relatively high GDP growth, however, enabled the government to show only a moderate 90 basis point rise in fiscal deficit as percentage of GDP to 5.6 per cent in the current fiscal compared to 4.7 per cent in 1997-98.

What is, however, a worrying trend is a 103 per cent jump in revenue expenditure while capital expenditure (which yields returns for the government) has seen a modest increase of 40 per cent from Rs 51,718 crore in 1997-98 to Rs 72,568 crore.

During the period, revenue expenditure shot up from Rs 1,80,335 crore to Rs 3,66,227 crore in the budget estimate for 2003-04. In fact, the quality of expenditure has deteriorated with revenue spend accounting for 83.5 per cent of the total expenditure for the current fiscal compared to 77.7 per cent in 1997-98.

The interest burden on the government has risen 87.73 per cent from Rs 65,637 crore in 1997-98 to Rs 1,23,223 crore at the end of the current fiscal.

The soft interest rate regime during the last couple of years has, however, held the government in good stead with interest payments as a percentage of total expenditure actually showing a marginal decrease from 28.28 per cent to 28.08 per cent during the period.

The Vajpayee government has been more generous in doling out subsidies too. Since the government took over, the subsidy bill has shot up 169 per cent from Rs 18,540 crore to touch Rs 50,000 crore this fiscal. As a percentage of total expenditure too, it has increased from less than 8 per cent in 1997-98 to 11.37 per cent in 2003-04.