Budget 2016: India Inc counsels controlling fiscal deficit

Keeping in view the government's compulsions to contain fiscal deficit, the Confederation of Indian Industry Sunday expressed the hope that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would keep a firm focus on fiscal prudence and fiscal discipline in the union budget 2015-16.

"A restrained fiscal deficit would keep inflationary tendencies under check and facilitate 'crowding in' of private investment thereby strengthening the recovery process," CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee said in a statement here.

In this connection, CII requested the government to explore non-tax options of garnering revenue which, it said, include disinvestment, effecting dilution of residual government shares in private companies, as well as the sale of spectrum and mineral blocks.

"Another revenue generating measure is to flag-off strategic sale of loss-making public sector undertakinggs. Many of these units are in the non-strategic sectors where the presence of the State serves little public purpose besides being a drain on the exchequer," it added.

Further, the finance minister would do well to start the process of monetising unutilized and underutilized government land available with the railways, port trusts, etc.", CII said.

"The budget can look to pare the government stake in public sector banks to 51 percent. This would facilitate capital infusion and efficiency in public sector banks," the statement added.

The industry chamber also suggested that prices of subsidised items should be raised if allocation targets are exceeded.

"This model of curbing runaway subsidy bill could also be emulated by the states," it said.