Fiscal deficit needs to be contained to bring down high interest rates: Montek

10 Apr 2012 Evaluate

Industry woes are due to the government’s large fiscal deficit and lowering the same can genuinely bring down the interest rates, as per the Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

While conceding that the high interest rate regime is affecting businesses in India, Ahluwalia pointed out that the main reason for this is not the inflation but the high fiscal deficit. This is because high fiscal deficit leads to increased government borrowings and saps the liquidity of economy. If the deficit is brought down, it leads to a genuine lowering of interest rates and benefits everyone.

Fiscal deficit is the gap between government's total expenditure and total income. When fiscal deficit rises, the government resorts to borrowing which reduces the availability of credit for the private sector.

The high interest rate in India has affected the industry output and the growth of the Index of Industrial Production during the April-January 2011-12 has slowed to 4% as against 8.3% in year ago period. The government’s fiscal deficit for the last financial year is expected to be a whopping 5.9% against the targeted 4.6%. The government has proposed to bring it down to 5.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the current financial year.

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