Chidambaram hopeful of meeting fiscal deficit target

'Govt 'not celebrating' the flopping of the auction, will continue to move forward'

Expressing the hope that government will be able to achieve the 5.3% fiscal deficit target for 2013-14 despite poor response in the 2G spectrum auction and slow progress in PSU disinvestment, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said that there is still time for disinvestment process to start and also the auction process has not ended.

"The EGOM on telecom will meet shortly to deliberate on the remaining auctions which are the unbid circles from GSM, CDMA and spectrum refarming and on disinvestment process will start. We still have some time left in this financial year and I'am hopeful of getting revenues from somewhere to manage out fiscal deficit," Chidambaram told reporters after a meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on media.

He said that EGOM on telecom will discuss all the issues related to telecom auctions including the future reserve price and also consider the experience from the last spectrum auction.

"I'am very sure that there would some net gain to the government from the telecom auctions and how much it will be needs to be calculated and will only be known once all the auctions are over," Chidambaram said. Remember, we still have unsold blocks in GSM, full CDMA and refarming of circles and once all this is over we (the government) would have some net gain from the telecom auctions.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said as of now government has Rs 17,343 crore net gain from the 2G auctions, which include the market determined price and also the one-time fee.

Meanwhile, on general economic conditions, Chidambaram said the economic conditions are challenging and today eurozone has formally entered into recession, but India is confident of a growth pick up in the third and fourth quarter of this financial year.

"We are hopeful of ending the 2012-13 at a satisfactory level of growth and then present a reasonable Budget and then aim for high growth in the next financial year," the finance minister said. He said though Eurozone has entered into a recession, but we are nowhere near that and are expected to grow at around 5-6% in 2013-14.