'Pressing engagements' spur Jaitley to cancel pre-Budget meeting

The finance ministry on Thursday cancelled a meeting scheduled between Arun Jaitley and his team with economists due to "pressing engagements" of the minister. It was to be on Saturday, two days ahead of the Budget on Monday, something never done before.

Also, the bond market started reacting on rumours that the ministry would explain reasons for fiscal slippage at the meeting. Government bonds slumped on Thursday. The most traded 8.27 per cent 2020 bond yield rose to 7.97 per cent, its highest since September 8, 2015.
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The fiscal consolidation road map mandates the government to prune the deficit to 3.5 per cent of the country's gross domestic product in 2016-17, compared to the targeted 3.9 per cent in the current financial year. Jaitley had already deferred the fiscal consolidation road map by a year.
 

Before cancelling the meeting, the ministry had tried to explain that it had nothing to do with the Budget but was to be a post-Economic Survey analysis kind of event. The survey would be presented in Parliament on Friday. Sources said Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian was also to be present at the meeting and was to brief the participants about the global and domestic economic situation. Plus, analysis of the micro and macroeconomic situation presented in the survey, sources said.