India’s Fiscal Deficit At 74.5% Of FY25 Target In April-January
The Indian government's fiscal deficit has reached Rs 11.69 lakh crore, against the budgeted FY25 target of Rs 15.69 lakh crore.
The Union government’s fiscal deficit reached 74.5% of the budgeted target by the end of the first 10 months of financial year 2025.
The gap between expenditure and revenue stood at Rs 11.69 lakh crore from April to January, against the full-year target of Rs 15.69 lakh crore, according to provisional data released on Friday by the Controller General of Accounts. In the same period last year, the fiscal deficit was Rs 11.02 lakh crore.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget 2025 speech on Feb. 1, set a fiscal deficit target of 4.8% of GDP for the ongoing fiscal. The government had initially projected a 4.9% deficit in July, as part of its fiscal consolidation efforts. This marked an improvement from the previous fiscal’s target of 5.6% of GDP.
The fiscal deficit was supported by the Reserve Bank of India’s record dividend transfer and a reduction in capital expenditure. The RBI paid Rs 2.1 lakh crore as dividend to the government for the fiscal 2024, the highest surplus on record.
The government's total expenditure for the first 10 months of fiscal 2025 was Rs 35.69 lakh crore, or 75.7% of the annual estimate, compared to Rs 33.54 lakh crore a year earlier.
Capital expenditure from April to January totalled Rs 7.57 lakh crore, reaching 74.4% of the full-year target, up 5% from the same period last year. The decline in capital spending in the early months was primarily due to the Lok Sabha elections.
The revenue deficit for the period stood at Rs 4.41 lakh crore, or 72.4% of the annual target, compared to Rs 4.15 lakh crore a year ago.
Non-tax revenue by January 2025 amounted to Rs 4.67 lakh crore, reaching 88.1% of the budget estimate of Rs 5.31 lakh crore for the current fiscal.
