Nine years later…The FM is left with a salvage job

P Chidambaram will present the Manmohan Singh government’s 10th and last Budget on Thursday. This is a useful time to look back on how key indicators have moved since May 2004, when the government took charge amidst great expectations. The fiscal deficit for this year is projected (after some manful tightening by the finance minister) at 5.3 per cent of GDP, and compares poorly with 4.8 per cent in 2003-04. What is worse is that the primary deficit (which gives you the current year’s fiscal balance, leaving out interest payments on accumulated debt) has deteriorated from 0.3 per cent of GDP in 2003-04 to 1.9 per cent for 2012-13 (this will get revised on Thursday).

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