NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s fiscal deficit for the first six months of the financial year that started April 1 was 7.02 trillion Indian rupees ($84.35 billion), 39.3% of the estimate for the whole year, government data showed on Tuesday.
April-September net tax revenues were 11.6 trillion rupees, or 49.8% of the annual estimate, higher than 10.12 trillion rupees in the same period last year, according to the data.
Corporate tax collections rose 20% year on year to 4.51 trillion rupees, the data showed.
Total expenditure during the period was 21.19 trillion rupees, or 47.1% of the annual goal, higher than 18.24 trillion rupees in the same period last year.
In the first six months of the financial year, government capital expenditure – or spending on building infrastructure – was 4.91 trillion rupees, or 49% of the annual target, higher than 3.43 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.
($1 = 83.2250 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nikunj Ohri and Shivangi Acharya; Editing by Ed Osmond and Mark Potter)
