NK Singh to head FRBM panel

NEW DELHI: The government has set up a high-level panel chaired by former revenue and expenditure secretary and member of parliament NK Singh to review the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act and examine the need to have flexible fiscal deficit targets instead of fixed ones.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley had announced setting up of such a panel in his budget speech to redraw the fiscal framework of the country.

The announcement came in the backdrop of heated debate in the country on whether the government should adhere to fiscal deficit targets or change them to boost growth. A call to this effect was given in the mid-year economic review presented by the Arvind Subramanian-headed economic division of the finance ministry.

Former finance secretary Sumit bose, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, director of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy Rathin Roy and deputy governor of RBI Urijit Patel will be its members, a finance ministry statement said late Tuesday evening.

The panel will examine fiscal deficit range instead of fixed targets and look into feasibility of fiscal expansion or contraction in relation to credit expansion and contraction.

The committee will also make its assessment of general government fiscal deficit and other FRBM parameters. Shalini Paulina • Now