India’s April-February fiscal deficit at 85.8pc of full-year target

NEW DELHI: India’s fiscal deficit for April-February was INR13.47 trillion ($157.62 billion), or 85.8 per cent of the estimate for the financial year ending March 31, government data showed on Friday.

Net tax receipts for the first 11 months of the financial year were at INR20.16 trillion, or 78.8 per cent of the annual target, compared with INR18.49 trillion for the same period a year earlier, the data showed.

India’s financial year runs from April through March.Total government expenditure for the 11 months was 38.93 trillion rupees or about 82.5 per cent of the annual goal. Capital expenditure, or spending on building physical infrastructure, was 8.12 trillion rupees, or 79.7 per cent of the annual target. India’s economic growth accelerates to 6.2 per cent in October-December

In the annual budget in February, India revised lower its fiscal deficit target for the current financial year to 4.8 per cent of GDP and aimed to further narrow it to 4.4 per cent in 2025-26.The government, which plans to shift to debt-to-GDP as the key benchmark for fiscal policy from 2026-27, said it would aim to bring debt down to a level of 50 per cent by March 2031 from about 57 per cent.