India's fiscal deficit by November-end at 52.5% of FY2025 target: Govt data

The Centre's fiscal deficit reached 52.5% of the full-year target at the end of November, data from the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) showed on Tuesday.

In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit—the gap between government expenditure and revenue—stood at ₹8.47 lakh crore during the April-November period of the 2024-25 financial year.

The government has set a target to cap the fiscal deficit at ₹16.13 lakh crore for the current fiscal.

Net tax revenue during the first eight months stood at Rs 14.43 lakh crore, while total expenditure amounted to ₹27.47 lakh crore, accounting for 56.9% of the budget estimate. Of the total expenditure, ₹22.27 lakh crore was on the revenue account, and ₹5.13 lakh crore was on the capital account.

Interest payments comprised ₹6.58 lakh crore of the revenue expenditure, while ₹2.79 lakh crore was allocated to major subsidies.

Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist at ICRA, said an expected shortfall in capital expenditure (capex) could counterbalance misses in disinvestment and tax revenue targets, as well as the impact of recent supplementary grant demands.

Accordingly, Icra expects the fiscal deficit to mildly trail the 2024-25 estimate of Rs 16.1 lakh crore or 4.9 per cent of GDP.