New Delhi, Oct 25 - The fiscal deficit of the Central government has widened in the first half of 2018-19 to 95.3% of the Budget Estimate (BE), mainly on account of slow growth in revenue collections, as per an official data released on Thursday.
The deficit was at 91.3% of BE at September-end of the last financial year.
In actual terms, the fiscal deficit or gap between the total expenditure and receipts was Rs 5.94 lakh crore during April-September this fiscal.
The government has budgeted to cut fiscal deficit to 3.3% of GDP in 2018-19 from 3.53% in the previous financial year.
The fiscal deficit target for 2018-19 is Rs 6.24 lakh crore.
As per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), the tax collection (net) at September-end was Rs 5.82 lakh crore, or 39.4%, of BE. It was 44.2% of the BE in similar period last fiscal.
The total receipts of the government during April-September 2018 were Rs 7.09 lakh crore, or 39%, of BE, compared to 40.6% in the same period of 2017-18.
The CGA data showed that total expenditure during April-September 2018 was Rs 13.04 lakh crore or 53.4% of BE.
The capital expenditure was Rs 1.62 lakh crore or 54.2% of BE, CGA said.