In the wake of a grim economic scenario, the government on Wednesday unveiled a string of minor austerity measures, aimed at restricting non-plan expenditure by 10%. This includes a ban on five-star venues for government meetings; foreign locations for conferences, exhibitions and seminars; and executive class airline tickets for officials. Further, the finance ministry via its circular also pushed officials to keep the size of delegations going abroad at an absolute minimum. It also directed other ministries and departments to not buy new vehicles, create fresh jobs or fill posts lying vacant for over a year.
The ministry hopes that these measures, which include a 10% cut in non-plan expenditures, but excludes interest payments, repayment of debt, the defense budget, salaries, and pensions, will help to curb the fiscal deficit at 4.8% of the GDP in 2013-14.
However, the measures are nothing new and are a reiteration of such steps taken in the past. Back in 2009, when the economy had slowed down due to the economic meltdown, the government had introduced similar austerity measures. The finance ministry had asked various ministries and departments to slash non- plan expenditure by 10%. Additionally, India’s finance ministry announced similar austerity measures in November last year, which helped it contain the fiscal deficit at 4.9% of GDP.
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