Fiscal deficit of the government is best defined as:

The correct answer is C, issuance of treasury bills. A receipt is capital if it either creates a liability for the government or reduces an asset it holds. A treasury bill is a short-term borrowing instrument, so issuing it creates a liability that must be repaid, and it is therefore classified as a capital receipt along with market loans, external loans, recovery of loans and disinvestment proceeds.

Option A, commercial revenue, is earned by government departments and undertakings from the sale of goods and services and neither creates a liability nor reduces an asset, so it is non-tax revenue. Option B, interest received on loans advanced by the government, is likewise recurring non-tax revenue. Option D, dividends and profits received from public sector undertakings and the Reserve Bank, is also non-tax revenue. All three are revenue receipts.

The correct answer is A, the Union Budget 2021-22. It was the first union budget in India not to be printed. The customary halwa ceremony that marks the start of printing was replaced, and the documents were made available to members of Parliament and to the public in electronic form through a dedicated Union Budget mobile application and the budget website.

Option B, the 2019-20 budget, is remembered instead for the briefcase being replaced by a red cloth ledger, but the documents were still printed. Option C, the 2020-21 budget, was presented before the change and is known for the longest budget speech delivered in Parliament. Option D, the 2018-19 budget, was the first full budget after the rollout of the goods and services tax, and again was a printed budget.

The correct answer is C, 6.8. The budget estimate for the fiscal deficit of the central government in 2021-22 was placed at 6.8 per cent of gross domestic product. The figure was unusually high because the budget followed the pandemic year, when revenue had collapsed and expenditure on relief had risen sharply, and the government set out a glide path to bring the deficit below 4.5 per cent of GDP by 2025-26.

Option A, 5.1 per cent, is far below the level announced for that year and reflects no budget estimate of the period. Option B, 7.6 per cent, and option D, 7.2 per cent, are both higher than the 2021-22 estimate; the revised estimate for the preceding pandemic year, 2020-21, was in fact placed even higher, near 9.5 per cent, which is the figure candidates often confuse with this one.

The correct answer is B, Rs. 30,000 crore. The Union Budget 2021-22 proposed raising the corpus of the Contingency Fund of India from five hundred crore rupees to thirty thousand crore rupees, and the change was carried through the Finance Bill of that year. The fund is constituted under Article 267, is held at the disposal of the President, and is used to meet urgent unforeseen expenditure pending authorisation by Parliament, after which it is recouped.

Option A, fifteen thousand crore, option C, twenty-five thousand crore, and option D, ten thousand crore, are all lower than the amount actually provided. The point worth remembering beyond the number is the reason for the increase: the corpus had remained unchanged for decades while the size of the budget had grown many times over, leaving too little room for genuine emergencies.

The correct answer is B, Article 112. The Constitution nowhere uses the word budget. Article 112 requires the President to cause to be laid before both Houses of Parliament, in respect of every financial year, a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India, and this statement is called the Annual Financial Statement. What is popularly known as the Union Budget is that document together with the related papers.

Option A, Article 110, defines what a Money Bill is and lists the matters it may deal with. Option C, Article 114, provides for the Appropriation Bill, without the passage of which no money may be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund of India. Option D, Article 123, has nothing to do with the budget at all: it gives the President the power to promulgate ordinances when Parliament is not in session.