The government Friday came out with a roadmap to reduce the fiscal deficit, the gap between total expenditure and revenue, to 3 per cent of the GDP by 2020-21, and eliminate primary deficit. As per the medium term fiscal policy cum fiscal policy strategy statement tabled in Parliament, the government is aiming to contain the fiscal deficit at 3.4 per cent in the current as well as next fiscal, and then bring it down to 3 per cent in 2020-21. Presenting the Union Budget, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said that the government would have maintained fiscal deficit at 3.3 per cent for year 2018-19 and taken further steps to consolidate fiscal deficit in year 2019-20. Primary Deficit is another indicator which has been included in the medium term fiscal policy statement from 2019-20. Primary deficit refers to the deficit left after subtracting interest payments from fiscal deficit.

Source: dna February 01, 2019 12:45 UTC