A bigger fiscal worry

Reining in states' fiscal deficit must be priority

In the last four years, the Union government has done reasonably well with regard to fiscal consolidation. In each of these years, the Centre’s fiscal deficit has declined over that in the previous year, and in the current year as well it is set to decline to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product, or GDP. The target set for 2017-18 is still lower at 3.2 per cent. While this is commendable in itself — even though it could be argued that the quality and pace of fiscal consolidation in the Union government’s finances could have been better — a