India’s finance minister may have to slice at least 200 billion rupees ($3.2 billion) from government spending to prevent a budget blow-out, which could threaten to send the country’s credit rating into “junk” status, two ministry officials said.
P. Chidambaram will make a final decision on whether to go ahead with the cuts at the end of October, when he gets an update on revenue collections, the officials, who have direct knowledge of the process, said.
If he goes ahead with cuts, the minister would likely focus on areas of discretionary spending but keep programmes, such as food subsidies, in place as state and national elections near, these officials said.
Chidambaram, who last year oversaw cuts worth over 1 trillion rupees, is aiming to prevent the budget for the fiscal year to March 2014 from stretching beyond a deficit target of 4.8 percent of GDP.
via Reuters
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