April-October fiscal deficit crosses full year target at Rs 6.49 trillion

The government has said it was confident of meeting its fiscal deficit target of 3.3% of GDP in FY19

India’s full-year fiscal deficit target of Rs 6.24 trillion was breached October-end due to lower revenue collections, showed government data on Friday.

The fiscal deficit—the gap between expenditure and revenue—was Rs 6.48 trillion or 103.9 per cent of Budget Estimate (BE) during April-October of the current financial year. At end of October 2017-18, the deficit was 96.1 per cent of the BE. The government has budgeted to cut fiscal deficit to 3.3 per cent of GDP in 2018-19 from 3.53 per cent in the previous financial year.

According to the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), the revenue receipts