India’s fiscal deficit between April and October was 103.9% of the budgeted target for the current financial year, or Rs 6.49 trillion, according to data released by the government on Friday. The fiscal deficit was 96.1% of the budgeted amount in the same period the previous year.
The net tax revenue from April to October was Rs 6.61 lakh crore, which was 44.7% of the annual budgeted estimate. The government’s total expenditure stood at Rs 14.5 lakh crore, which is 59.6% of the annual budget estimate.
Fiscal deficit occurs when a government spends more than the revenue it earns. The government has targeted a fiscal deficit of 3.3% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2018-’19. In September, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressed confidence about meeting this target.
The fiscal deficit from April to August was 94.7% of the target, while the deficit in the first half of the previous financial year was 91.3% of the target.
Data from the Central Statistics Office on Friday showed that Gross Domestic Product growth slowed to 7.1% in the July-September quarter. The GDP had grown 8.2% in the April-June quarter and 7.7% in the quarter before that. The growth between April and June had been the best in two years, showing signs of recovery since the decline to a three-year low of 5.6% in April-June 2017.
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