Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee speaks during a post-Budget interaction with Indian industrialists, in New Delhi on Tuesday. Indian businesses and analysts on Tuesday hailed the government's annual budget, which is expected to stimulate the economy and develop infrastructure with massive spending, especially in rural areas.
New Delhi: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said the government has taken the calculated risk of high fiscal deficit to help stimulate growth, but would strive hard to bring it down to 4 per cent in the next two fiscals.
Noting that a fiscal deficit of 6.8 per cent was on the higher side, the minister said: "The global economic slowdown is likely to continue in the current financial year... (but) we must come back to growth path as fast as possible."
"No doubt, I have taken a risk... We cannot say we are out of the economic slowdown as yet," he said.
