The government is likely to miss its fiscal deficit target for this financial year, reported Business Standard, citing a government official. As against the budgeted 3.3 percent, the actual number could be between 3.5 percent and 3.8 percent of the GDP, the newspaper reported.

Share Market Live

NSE

The final call, the official said, will be taken by minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her budget team after the advance tax numbers are available by the middle of the month. “The FRBM Act allows us to slip up to 3.8 percent of the GDP. We are aiming to be around 3.5 percent, but it will depend on what sort of advance tax numbers we get,” the official was quoted as saying in the report.

The development comes months after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured that all the numbers mentioned in the Union Budget are realistic and achievable. Nirmala Sitharaman said after presenting the budget in July that as a government minister she is duty-bound to follow glide path to achieve fiscal deficit target of 3 percent as per the law.

"I am a government minister. There is a law under FRBM