India’s fiscal deficit for April–September reached ₹5.73 lakh crore, reflecting widening YoY pressure from expenditure-led growth drivers but still broadly tracking the FY26 glidepath committed by fiscal authorities. Economists indicate that large-scale capital expenditure, front-loaded infra commitments, incremental subsidy provisioning and expansion of welfare-linked financial support programmes have influenced the current gap. However, tax buoyancy and corporate earnings resilience remain supportive counterweights, enabling the shortfall to remain within accepted fiscal guardrails. Government think-tanks believe that if the disinvestment cycle executes on schedule and GST continues sustaining above ₹1.8 lakh crore level, India may close FY26 without aggressive borrowing distortions.