Fiscal deficit may touch 5.5%: Subir Gokarn, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor

MUMBAI: Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn on Monday said the fiscal deficit is likely to be around 5.5% of the GDP this financial year, which is creating stress on the inflation front.

The Finance Ministry had recently revised its fiscal deficit target for the fiscal to 5.3% for 2012-13, a tad above the budget estimate of 5.1%.

"Fiscal deficit is somewhere in the region of 5.5% or so. The government estimates that it will bring it to 5.3%, but quite some distance from the 2.5%- benchmark achieved in 2008," Gokarn told a meeting of the Indo-Swiss Chamber of Commerce here this late evening.