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

NEW DELHI: India’s fiscal deficit for April-February was 13.47 trillion rupees ($157.62 billion), or 85.8% 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 20.16 trillion rupees, or 78.8% of the annual target, compared with 18.49 trillion rupees 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% of the annual goal. Capital expenditure, or spending on building physical infrastructure, was 8.12 trillion rupees, or 79.7% of the annual target.

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In the annual budget in February, India revised lower its fiscal deficit target for the current financial year to 4.8% of GDP and aimed to further narrow it to 4.4% 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% by March 2031 from about 57%.