What a widening fiscal deficit could mean

After weeks of stress and tension over a widening deficit, you could actually see the government claiming on February 1 a significantly reduced slippage in its fiscal deficit

Deficit numbers seem to be playing havoc with the Union Budget projections. But you could trust the ingenuity of finance ministry mandarins to finally present for 2017-18 a fiscal deficit figure not much higher than the targeted 3.2 per cent of GDP. The real concerns, however, will remain. And these will be the underlying revenue trends, an overall trajectory of widening deficits of the Centre as well as states, and the dangers of a worsening quality of expenditure, writes A K Bhattacharya

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The Union government may fail to meet its fiscal deficit target in the current financial year. That,