India’s April-July fiscal deficit at 33.9% of 2023/24 target – government

India’s fiscal deficit for the first four months of the financial year that started April 1 was 6.06 trillion Indian rupees ($73.24 billion), 33.9% of the estimate for the whole year, government data showed on Thursday.

April-July net tax revenues were 5.83 trillion rupees, or 25% of the annual estimate, lower than 6.66 trillion rupees in the same period last year, according to the data.

Corporate tax collections have been weak, and declined more than 10% year on year to 1.76 trillion rupees in April-July, the data showed.

Total expenditure during the period was 13.81 trillion rupees, or 30.7% of the annual goal, higher than the 11.27 trillion rupees in the same period last year.

In the first four months of the financial year, government capital expenditure or spending on building infrastructure was 3.17 trillion rupees, or 31.7% of the annual target, higher than 2.09 trillion rupees in the same period a year earlier.

India aims to narrow its fiscal deficit to 5.9% of gross domestic product by the end of the current fiscal year, against 6.4% last year.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nikunj Ohri and Shivangi Acharya in New Delhi; Editing by Alison Williams, Bernadette Baum and Andrew Heavens)