India's fiscal deficit touches 91.3 per cent of full-year target in September

Mumbai: The government’s fiscal deficit has hit 91.3 per cent of the total Budget in the first six months of the fiscal with spending overtaking the receipts by a wide margin.

The Centre’s fiscal deficit rose to Rs 4,98,938 crore between April and September 2017, only slightly below the Rs 5.46 lakh crore target, according to data provided by the Comptroller General of Accounts (CGA).

The government aims to contain fiscal deficit to 3.2 per cent of GDP in the current fiscal as against 3.5 per cent in 2016-17.

This is a slight improvement from the August data when fiscal deficit accounted for 96.1 per cent of the total Budget target. However, it still remains in a precarious position when compared to April-September 2016 when it constituted 83.9 per cent of the Budget estimate.

The Centre’s revenue receipts were at Rs 6.23 trillion in the first six months of the current fiscal, which amounts to 41.1 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs 15.15 trillion for the entire year. These receipts were at 41.2 per cent of the target in the year-ago period.

Total expenditure totalled Rs 11.49 lakh crore at September-end or 53.5 per cent of the budget estimates. It was 52 per cent of the budget estimate a year ago.

Capital expenditure in the April-September period of this fiscal was only 47.3 per cent of budget estimate as compared to 54.7 per cent in the same period of last fiscal. The revenue expenditure amounted 54.6 per cent of the budget target during April-Septemer 2017-18.