Revenue expenditure was Rs 2.1 lakh crore in April against Rs 1.4 lakh crore in the same month last year, Icra said.
The government had advanced the budget to February 1, instead of the early practice of presenting it at the end of February, in order to ensure that it was passed by Parliament prior to beginning of the new fiscal.
The objective was to empower the various ministries and states to start spending from early April itself.
This was led by the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Pensions, and the Department of Food and Public Distribution, it said.
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Similarly, capital expenditure posted a considerable growth of 37.7 per cent. The government's revenue receipts also posted a substantial growth.
"As a result of the upfronting of expenditure, the government's revenue deficit for April 2017 stood at a substantial 55.4 per cent of the BE for 2017-18, higher than the same in April 2016," Icra said.