For 2017-18, the government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.2 per cent of the GDP. Last fiscal, it had met the 3.5 per cent target.
India's fiscal deficit at the end of the first half of the current fiscal touched 91.3 per cent of the budget estimate, mainly due to rise in expenditure.
In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit – difference between expenditure and revenue -- was Rs 4.99 lakh crore during the April-September period of 2017-18, according to the data of Controller General of Accounts (CGA).
During the same period of last financial year, 2016-17, the deficit was at 83.9 per cent of the target.
For 2017-18, the government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.2 per cent of the GDP. Last fiscal, it had met the 3.5 per cent target.
The CGA data showed that the government's revenue receipts were at Rs 6.23 lakh crore in the first six month of the current fiscal, which works out to be 41.1 per cent of the budget estimate (BE) of Rs 15.15 lakh crore for the entire year.
The receipts, comprising taxes and other items, were at 41.2 per cent of the target in the year-ago period.
As per the CGA data, the government's total expenditure had been increasing on sequential basis and 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 during April-September, 2017-18 was only 47.3 per cent of BE as compared to 54.7 per cent in the same period of last fiscal.
The revenue expenditure, including interest payment, was 54.6 per cent of the BE during April-Septemer 2017-18.
This compares with 51.6 per cent in the corresponding period of 2016-17.
Photograph: Mukesh Gupta/Reuters
