India's fiscal deficit is likely to be about one percentage point higher than the budgeted 4.6% of gross domestic product in the current fiscal year that ends in March, M. Govinda Rao, an economic adviser to the Prime Minister, said on Wednesday.
The fiscal deficit during April to December reached 92.3% of the full-year target, government data showed on Tuesday.
Rao's forecast matches with the view held by many private economists who had warned that the deficit for the year would overshoot the budgeted target by a full percentage point on slowing growth and weak federal finances, investment grade index narrowing by 4 basis points.
