India’s fiscal deficit touches 58.6% of annual target in two months

India’s federal fiscal deficit in the first two months through May stood at 4.66 trillion rupees ($61.67 billion), or 58.6% of the budgeted target for the current fiscal year, government data showed on Tuesday.

Net tax receipts during April-May period were 338.5 billion rupees ($4.48 billion), while total expenditure was 5.12 trillion rupees, the data showed, indicating the government was front-loading its budgeted spending to combat the impact of pandemic.

India’s federal fiscal deficit touched 4.6% of GDP in 2019/20 fiscal year ending March, from initial estimates of 3.3%.