FM hopes to achieve, improve fiscal deficit target of 4.8% for FY14

07 Jun 2013 Evaluate

The government is hoping to achieve and improve the current year's fiscal deficit target of 4.8 percent without compressing expenditure. Finance Minister P Chidambaram said, ‘I hope that with the drive to increase revenues and careful monitoring of expenditure, without compressing expenditure, I hope that we can not only achieve the fiscal deficit target of current year, we can better it.’

By adding further, Chidambaram said, fiscal deficit of 4.9 percent of the GDP in 2012-13 was achieved by ‘very substantial’ tightening in the second half of last year. The deficit was estimated to be 5.2 percent. Moreover, he also expressed hope that investment rate would pick up in the remaining three quarters of the current fiscal, and help revive growth. The deficit for 2013-14 has to be brought down to 4.8 percent and eventually to 3 percent by 2016-17, as per the fiscal consolidation roadmap.

On the inflation front, Finance Minister said that food inflation is still high, however expressed confidence that it will come down with the full harvest of Rabi crops. The overall WPI inflation fell to a three-year low of 4.89 percent in April, while food inflation stood at 6.08 percent. However, inflation based on consumer price index (CPI) stood at 9.39 percent in April.

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