The Planning Commission today said it would have been little irresponsible for it to pester government for allocating more funds for plan expenditure when fiscal deficit is burgeoning.
"I think it will be little irresponsible for the Planning Commission to start pestering on a plan in a period when the fiscal deficit has to be brought under control," Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters in a post-Budget interaction.
He further said that if the government was allowed to run with a high fiscal deficit, it would have been a crisis.
The government's fiscal deficit in 2012-13 has been contained at 5.2 per cent of the GDP (gross domestic product) from estimate of 5.3 per cent. For 2013-14, government targets to maintain fiscal deficit at about 4.8 per cent of the GDP.
The government has raised plan expenditure for 2013-14 by 6.58 per cent to Rs 5.55 lakh crore from the Budget estimates of Rs 5.21 lakh crore in the current fiscal year.
However, the jump in the plan expenditure for 2013-14 is 29.4 per cent when compared with the revised estimates of the same for the current fiscal year at Rs 4.29 lakh crore.
The Planning Commission had asked for a raise of about 15 per cent in the plan expenditure for 2013-14 over Budget estimate for the current fiscal year.
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