India’s April Budget Shortfall at 13.1% of Fiscal-Year Target

India’s budget deficit in April was 13.1 percent of the fiscal-year goal as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee strives to narrow the widest shortfall among the biggest emerging markets.

The gap was 672 billion rupees ($12 billion), the Controller General of Accounts said on its website today. It was 18.1 percent in April 2011.

Mukherjee in the annual budget in March outlined record borrowing of 5.69 trillion rupees to fund a deficit he estimated would be 5.1 percent of gross domestic product in the year that began April 1. Subsidies have fanned spending even as slowing growth has crimped tax revenue, with a report today showing GDP rose 5.3 percent last quarter, the slowest pace in nine years.

The budget shortfall for the 12 months through March 31, 2012 was 5.1 trillion rupees compared with a target of 5.22 trillion rupees, the government said in a separate report earlier today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tushar Dhara in New Delhi at tdhara1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net