New Delhi: The fiscal deficit of the Central government has widened in the first half of 2018-19 to 95.3 per cent of the Budget Estimate (BE), mainly on account of slow growth in revenue collections, as per an official data released Thursday.

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The deficit was at 91.3 per cent of BE at September-end of the last financial year. In actual terms, the fiscal deficit or gap between the total expenditure and receipts was Rs 5.94 lakh crore during April-September this fiscal.

The government has budgeted to cut fiscal deficit to 3.3 per cent of GDP in 2018-19 from 3.53 per cent in the previous financial year. The fiscal deficit target for 2018-19 is Rs 6.24 lakh crore.

As per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), the tax collection (net) at September-end was Rs 5.82 lakh crore, or 39.4 per cent, of BE. It was 44.2 per cent of the BE in similar period last fiscal.

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The total receipts of the government during April-September 2018 were Rs 7.09 lakh crore, or 39 per cent, of BE, compared to 40.6 per cent in the same period of 2017-18.

The CGA data showed that total expenditure during April-September 2018 was Rs 13.04 lakh crore or 53.4 per cent of BE.  The capital expenditure was Rs 1.62 lakh crore or 54.2 per cent of BE, CGA said.