India’s fiscal deficit at the end of May stood at 12.3% of the annual Budget target for 2022-’23, PTI reported, citing the data released by the government said.

Fiscal deficit of a government is the gap between its expenditure and revenues.

For the current financial year, the government has projected that the deficit will come at 6.40% of the Gross Domestic Product as against 6.71% for the previous year, according to PTI.

According to the government, the net revenue was 15.9% of the Budget Estimate or Rs 3,07,589 crore between April and May.

The central government’s total expenditure at the end of May stood at Rs 5.85 lakh crore, or 14.8%, of this year’s Budget Estimate. It was 13.7% of the Budget Estimate in May last year.

The total receipts of the government at the end of May were at Rs 3.81 lakh crore or 16.7% of the Budget Estimate for the current fiscal.

Last year, the fiscal deficit had hit its highest-ever level of 9.2% of the gross domestic product. After presenting last year’s Budget, the finance minister had said that the government had “spent, spent and spent”. She had cited this as the reason for the high level of fiscal deficit.