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The Central government's fiscal deficit widened to Rs 9.82 lakh crore in April-December from Rs 9.07 lakh crore in April-November, data released by the Controller General of Accounts on January 31 showed.

At Rs 9.82 lakh crore, the fiscal deficit for the first nine months of the current financial year accounts for 55.0 percent of the full-year target of Rs 17.87 lakh crore.

The fiscal deficit in April-December 2022 was 59.8 percent of the target for 2022-23.

The release of fiscal deficit data for April-December comes a day before Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tables the interim Budget for 2024-25 in Parliament, where she is expected to announce a fiscal deficit target of 5.3 percent of GDP for next year as the government looks to meet its medium-term objective of 4.5 percent by 2025-26.

While economists expect the Centre to meet its fiscal deficit target of 5.9 percent of GDP for 2023-24, the latest data indicates that the prospects are bright for the Union government's finances.

While the fiscal deficit in December, at Rs 75,694 crore, is more than five times what it was in December 2022, for April-December 2023 as a whole the fiscal deficit was down 1 percent year-on-year.

The surge in the fiscal deficit in December was spurred by a huge increase in capital expenditure, which more than doubled year-on-year to Rs 87,985 crore, taking the total for year to Rs 6.74 lakh crore. The pick-up in capex is encouraging after it had slowed down in recent months, leading to economists predicting that the Centre may miss its record target of Rs 10 lakh crore for 2023-24.

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