- NEW DELHI: India's fiscal deficit for the first eight months of the financial year ballooned to Rs.3.53 trillion ($66.3 billion), or nearly 86 percent of the full-year target, reinforcing expectations the government will be forced to tap the bond market for additional borrowing.
During the April-November period a year ago, India's fiscal deficit was about 49 percent of the budgeted target.
The deficit in revenue receipts was 91.3 percent of the full-year target after eight months, compared with about 51 percent last year, government data showed on Friday.
Net tax receipts were 3.2 trillion rupees while total expenditure was Rs.7.61 trillion for April-November.
Separately, the government said India's total external debt rose to $326.6 billion at the end of September, from $317 billion at the end of June.
Earlier this month, the government had said the external debt continued to remain within manageable limits.
New Delhi budgeted a fiscal deficit of 4.6 percent of gross domestic product for fiscal year 2011/12 in February, but many private economists see the deficit for the year overshooting by a full percentage point on slowing growth and weak federal finances.
New Delhi has acknowledged that meeting the fiscal gap target would be a "great challenge", but officials said they would try to keep the deficit under 5 percent of GDP by pruning expenditure.
Any slippage on the fiscal gap target could force the cash-strapped government to borrow more from the market. It has already unveiled Rs.528 billion of extra borrowing for the remainder of this year.