Vijay Kelkar, two others to formulate fiscal roadmap

New Delhi: With a view to controlling its finances, the government today said it will seek help of former Finance Secretary Vijay Kelkar and two other experts to formulate fiscal consolidation roadmap.

"Adjustments must be made both on the revenue side and on the expenditure side. We have asked Vijay Kelkar, Indira Rajaraman and Sanjiv Misra to assist the government in formulating the path of fiscal consolidation and we expect that the work will be completed in a few weeks," Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters here.

Both Misra and Rajaraman had been members of the 13th Finance Commission, which was headed by Kelkar.

The Centre's fiscal deficit has ballooned to 5.76 per cent of GDP in the last fiscal on account of high fuel subsidy outgo. The government has not been able to decontrol diesel prices even after taking in-principle decision.

"We intend to unveil, shortly, a path of fiscal consolidation... The burden of fiscal correction must be shared, fairly and equitably, by different classes of stakeholders. The poor must be protected and others must bear their fair share of the burden," Chidambaram said.

For the April-June period, the fiscal deficit rose to Rs 1.9 lakh crore, or 37.1 per cent of the 2012-13 target. The Centre hopes to bring down the deficit to 5.1 per cent of GDP in the current fiscal but the task seems difficult in view of rising oil, food and fertiliser subsidy bills.