Govt to take difficult decisions soon to restrain widening deficits: Finance Minister

14 Oct 2013 Evaluate

Amid rising concerns over the widening deficits of the country, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said that the government is committed to the path of fiscal consolidation and will take difficult decisions soon to check country’s widening deficits. Confessing that the government policies are directly responsible for the current account deficit (CAD) and fiscal deficit, Chidambaram said the government has drawn red lines for the two deficits, which will never be breached under any circumstances. The government has set target to contain the CAD at 3.7 percent and fiscal deficit at 4.8 percent of GDP in the current financial year.

Country’s fiscal deficit has touched around three-fourths of the budget estimate in the first five months of the fiscal. To check fiscal deficit within target limit, the government has recently announced a slew of austerity measures including banning government departments for holding meetings in 5-star hotels among others to cut spending in non-critical areas. In order to restrain CAD, the government is taking steps to boost country’s exports and to restrain imports particularly gold. India's current account deficit widened to $21.8 billion or 4.9 percent of GDP in the April-June quarter of FY14 as compared to 3.6 percent of GDP in the previous quarter mainly due to high gold imports and decline in merchandise exports.

Referring to economic growth, Finance Minister said that Indian economy has been struggling with downturn, while, the government had taken a number of initiatives to ease supply constraints, improve investment climate and put the economy on the path of sustainable growth. Indian economic growth slowed down to four year low at 4.4 percent in Q1 FY14. Meanwhile, the government expects that economy will grow between 5 to 5.5 percent in the current fiscal.

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