NEW DELHI: India‘s federal fiscal deficit in the seven months to end-October stood at 9.53 trillion rupees ($128.9 billion), or 126.7% of the budgeted target for the whole fiscal year, government data showed on Friday.

Net tax receipts were 5.76 trillion rupees, down 15.7% from a year ago, while total expenditure was 16.6 trillion rupees, the data showed.

The deficit is predicted to exceed 8% of GDP in the 2020/21 fiscal year that ends in March 2021, economists said, from initial government estimates of 3.5%, mainly due to a sharp economic contraction triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.