Centre's fiscal deficit touches 54.5 pc of budget estimate in Dec: Govt data

The Centre's fiscal deficit at the end of December stood at Rs 8.55 lakh crore, or 54.5 per cent of the annual budget target for 2025-26, compared to 56.7 per cent in the year-ago period, government data released on Friday showed. The Centre estimates the fiscal deficit (the gap between expenditure and revenue) during 2025-26 at 4.4 per cent of GDP, or Rs 15.69 lakh crore. According to data released by the Controller and Auditor General of India (CAG), the central government received about Rs 25.25 lakh crore, or 72.2 per cent of the corresponding budget estimate for total receipts up to December 2025. The total expenditure incurred by the Centre was Rs 33.8 lakh crore (66.7 per cent of the corresponding budget estimate 2025-26, out of which Rs 25.93 lakh crore was on revenue account and Rs 7.87 lakh crore on capital account, till December.