The government has breached its fiscal deficit target given in the Budget for 2017-18 in November itself. During the April-November period, the fiscal deficit was 112 per cent of its Rs 5.5 lakh crore target for current fiscal year.

This is the highest deviation from the Budget Estimates (BE) for fiscal deficit in the first eight months of a financial year since 2008-09, the year of the global financial crisis. This means that the government needs to have a fiscal surplus in the next four months combined if it has to meet its target, which observers said, is a difficult ask. The ...