India's fiscal deficit for the first five months of the financial year that started April 1 was 6.43 trillion rupees ($77.43 billion), 36% of the estimate for the whole year, government data showed on Friday.

April-Aug net tax revenues were 8.04 trillion rupees, or 34.5% of the annual estimate, higher than 7 trillion rupees in the same period last year, according to the data.

Corporate tax collections rose over 15% year on year to 2.39 trillion rupees in April-Aug, the data showed.

Total expenditure during the period was 16.72 trillion rupees, or 37.1% of the annual goal, higher than the 13.90 trillion rupees in the same period last year.

In the first five months of the financial year, government capital expenditure or spending on building infrastructure was 3.74 trillion rupees, or 37.4% of the annual target, higher than 2.52 trillion rupees in the same period a year earlier.

India aims to narrow its fiscal deficit to 5.9% of gross domestic product by the end of the current fiscal year, against 6.4% last year. ($1 = 83.0396 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Nikunj Ohri and Shivangi Acharya; Editing by Susan Fenton, Elaine Hardcastle)