Two numbers sit in the same audit report. The Central Government’s debt fell as a share of the economy for a second year. And ₹38.40 lakh crore had been raised as tax and not yet collected.
Report No. 29 of 2026 of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, on Compliance of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003, for the year 2024-25, was presented in Parliament on 12 August 2026; the auditor’s press release is dated 13 August 2026. The review is not discretionary: Rule 8 of the FRBM Act requires the Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct it every year. The Act itself was enforced in July 2004, to secure inter-generational equity in fiscal management and long-term macro-economic stability.
The debt, and the direction of travel
The framework asks the Centre to hold the fiscal deficit to three per cent of GDP by 31 March 2021, and to endeavour to bring General Government Debt to 60 per cent of GDP and Central Government Debt to 40 per cent by the end of FY 2024-25. The Budget Speech for FY 2021-22 committed to a broad path of consolidation towards a fiscal deficit below 4.5 per cent of GDP by FY 2025-26, reiterated in the Medium-Term Fiscal Policy Statements for FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25.
The auditor records both halves of the result. Central Government debt as a percentage of GDP decreased over the last two years to 58.46 per cent by the end of FY 2024-25 — and the 40 per cent sunset target was not met, leaving a gap of 18.46 percentage points, recomputed. In absolute terms debt rose by ₹14.24 lakh crore in FY 2024-25, 8.29 per cent over FY 2023-24. And, in the auditor’s own finding, the pace of accumulation of Central Government debt between FY 2022-23 and FY 2024-25 was less than the expansion of GDP. That is the sentence a reader should hold on to: the stock grew, the economy grew faster, and the ratio therefore fell.
The report attributes the increase mainly to a rise of ₹12.28 lakh crore in internal debt, ₹0.78 lakh crore in the current value of external debt and ₹0.24 lakh crore in public account liability. Blitz India added the three: they come to ₹13.30 lakh crore, or 93.4 per cent of the year’s increase, leaving ₹0.94 lakh crore not itemised in the press brief. The word the auditor uses is “mainly”, and the arithmetic bears that word out exactly.
FRBM compliance for 2024-25
| Parameter / Metric | Details |
|---|---|
| Report | No. 29 of 2026, for the year 2024-25 |
| Presented in Parliament | 12 August 2026 |
| CAG press release | 13 August 2026 |
| Basis of the review | Rule 8 of the FRBM Act, 2003 |
| Central Government debt, end FY 2024-25 | 58.46 per cent of GDP |
| Sunset target | 40 per cent — a gap of 18.46 points |
| Increase in debt, FY 2024-25 | ₹14.24 lakh crore, up 8.29 per cent |
| — internal debt | ₹12.28 lakh crore |
| — external debt, current value | ₹0.78 lakh crore |
| — public account liability | ₹0.24 lakh crore |
| Three components as share of the rise | 93.4 per cent; ₹0.94 lakh crore not itemised |
| Pace of debt accumulation, FY23 to FY25 | Less than the expansion of GDP |
| Debt stabilisation indicator, FY 2024-25 | Positive |
| Interest to revenue receipts | 35.35 (FY23), 35.72 (FY24), 34.02 per cent (FY25) |
| Additional guarantees, FY 2024-25 | Within the half-per-cent-of-GDP limit |
| Tax raised but not realised | ₹38.40 lakh crore |
| — increase over the previous year | ₹7.29 lakh crore |
| — not under dispute | ₹4.80 lakh crore |
Source: Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, press release of 13 August 2026 on Report No. 29 of 2026, presented 12 August 2026. The component sum, the percentage-point gap and the arrears ratios recomputed by Blitz India. Photograph note, Circular BIMG/CIR/2026/02. No copyright-clean photograph of this subject, taken on this date, could be verified from this session, and the circular bars an old picture, a stock image and a news-agency picture alike. Rather than ship an unverified filename, the desk carries this in-house Blitz data card at the exact point where the picture would run.
Three indicators that improved
The report carries three findings that a fair reading has to put together. Debt sustainability, as measured by the debt stabilization indicator, was positive for FY 2024-25. The ratio of interest payments to revenue receipts — the auditor calls it an important indicator of fiscal health, and it measures how much of what the government earns goes to servicing what it owes — stood at 35.35 per cent in FY 2022-23, rose to 35.72 per cent in FY 2023-24, and then declined to 34.02 per cent in FY 2024-25. Recomputed, that is a fall of 1.70 percentage points from the peak. And additional guarantees on the security of the Consolidated Fund of India stayed within the prescribed half per cent of GDP.
The reconciliation questions
The remainder of the report is about figures that do not match one another, and it is here that the reader learns most. The fiscal deficit in Budget at a Glance 2026-27 is shown as ₹15.74 lakh crore, while the figure calculated as per the FRBM Act, 2003 from the Union Government Finance Accounts 2024-25 is ₹14.70 lakh crore — a difference of ₹1.04 lakh crore, or 7.07 per cent, recomputed. The auditor also noticed variations in the D2 statement on arrears of interest against the Union Government Finance Accounts; variation within the Receipt Budget in the financial assets disclosed in the D4 statement; and Budget Estimate figures used in the half-yearly statements and the Medium-Term Fiscal Policy Statement differing from those in the Annual Financial Statement 2024-25.
Then the largest number in the report. At the end of FY 2024-25, ₹38.40 lakh crore stood raised as taxes but not yet realised. That figure rose by ₹7.29 lakh crore over the previous year — a rise of 23.43 per cent on the opening figure, recomputed — and of the total, ₹4.80 lakh crore was “not under dispute”. The undisputed portion alone is 12.5 per cent of the whole and 65.84 per cent of the year’s increase. Undisputed means no one is contesting that it is owed.
What the desk could not establish
This report is written from the Comptroller and Auditor General’s own press release on the tabled report. The tabled volume, with its full statements and the Ministry of Finance’s replies, was not reachable from this session. The paragraph references given above — 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, 3.1.1, 3.1.2 and 3.2 — are those the auditor prints in the press release itself, and nothing beyond them is cited. Nothing is presented as concluded against the Ministry, and no individual is named.
The constructive point is a single one and it concerns the ₹4.80 lakh crore that is not in dispute. Debt that falls as a share of GDP while undisputed tax arrears rise is a system recovering on one side and leaking on the other. If the Department of Revenue published, once a year and in one table, the undisputed arrears figure split by the age of the demand — under a year, one to three years, three to five, over five — and by the reason recovery has not happened, Parliament and the taxpayer would both be able to see which part of ₹4.80 lakh crore is genuinely collectable. The Comptroller and Auditor General has done the difficult work of putting the number on the record. Publishing its composition would tell the country what to do about it.
