Implementation of the Food Security Bill will not impact fiscal deficit: FM

28 Aug 2013 Evaluate

Assuring investors that there is no need to get excessively worried over the country’s fiscal and current account deficits, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said that the implementation of the Food Security Bill will not impact the country’s fiscal deficit and will be contained at 4.8 percent of the GDP in the current fiscal. Chidambaram said that the government has provided enough money for the cost of the food security programme for the current fiscal and food bill will remain in the limit that the government has set in the Budget. The government has budgeted Rs 90,000 crore for food subsidy in FY14, of which Rs 10,000 crore is towards the implementation of the programme. He pointed that the government was able to contain the fiscal deficit at 4.89 percent in FY13 as against a stated target of 5.2 percent of GDP.

The government has approved the implementation of the Food Security programme to give nation's two-third population the right to get 5 kgs of foodgrains every month per person at highly subsidised rates of Rs 1-3 per kg. As per the food security bill, the programme will cost around Rs 1,30,000 crore annually for the government to supply around 62 million tonnes of rice, wheat and coarse cereals to 67 percent of the population. The scheme is likely to take at least six months to cover the entire country.

Referring to the economic slowdown, Chidambaram said that unleashing more reforms is the only way to deal with ongoing economic crises and cited ten steps to pick up the country’s economic growth to its potential rate of 8 percent. These steps include promoting exports, reviving investments, containing fiscal and current account deficits, raising capex of PSUs, recapitalising PSU banks among other.

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