Govt’s austerity drive likely to cut spending by about Rs 1,000 crore

08 Jun 2012 Evaluate

After vowing to resort to unpopular austerity measures to deal with India’s fiscal problems last month, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee unveiled a slew of austerity measures which according to preliminary estimates could help the government save around Rs 1,000 crore of the public exchequer. The finance ministry’s austerity measures came after recent series of economic reports highlighted that the nation’s economy is going through a turbulent phase and has slowed to the lowest levels not seen in last nine years while government’s fiscal deficit widened.

In its bid to cut spending, the ministry unveiled various measures including cutting down on non-plan expenditure by 10 percent, barring ministers and official delegations from holding conferences in five-star hotels, buying new vehicles or travelling abroad unless absolutely necessary. The austerity steps also impose a total ban on creating new government posts.

Of the government’s total budgeted expenditure of Rs 14.9 lakh crore for 2012-13, plan expenditure stands at Rs 5.2 lakh crore while non-plan expenditure is Rs 9.7 lakh crore. It is estimated that the 10 percent cut on non-plan expenditure would additionally save the government more than Rs 50,000 core which could lead the government to borrow less and still meet fiscal deficit targets. With the fiscal deficit shooting up to 5.7% of the GDP in previous fiscal due to higher subsidy expenditure, Mukherjee in his budget 2012-13 had announced to limit its subsidies to 2% of the GDP.

The austerity measures were also extended to government’s autonomous bodies funded by the government like Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority; Federation of Indian Export Organisations; Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; Income Tax Appellate Tribunal; Securities and Exchange Board of India; National Highways Authority of India; Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority; Reserve Bank of India and National Institute of Public Finance & Policy.

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