Living on hope

Meeting the fiscal deficit target looks challenging

India appears to be entering another period of demand-driven overheating. Both the current account deficit and the fiscal deficit appear to be slipping, driven by government expenditure and rising global crude oil prices. This is a dynamic that is familiar from past such episodes, and the government has to be careful that it does not halt the incipient investment recovery before it properly begins. Last week, the data from the Controller General of Accounts showed that the Union government’s fiscal deficit had reached Rs 5.91 trillion in the April to August period of the year, which is over 97 per