The Union Finance Minister Shri P Chidambaram called the policy decisions of the Central Government to correct some prices and review of certain tax policies as a dose of bitter medicine. Presenting the General Budget 2013-14 in Lok Sabha today, Shri Chidambaram said, faced with a huge fiscal deficit, the Government had no choice but to rationalize expenditure. He said that the Government took some policy decisions that had been deferred for too long and undertook a review of certain tax policies.
The Finance Minister stated that in the Budget for 2012-13, the estimate of Plan Expenditure was too ambitious and the estimate of non-Plan Expenditure was too conservative. He said that the Government retrieved some economic space and used that economic space to advance Government™s socio economic objectives.
