Ex-FM spots budget fissures

Initiating a discussion on the general Budget, he said there is a slide down in the growth rate since the NDA government assumed office.‘‘Our economy is performing far below its potential. The GDP average for the last four years is no more than 5 per cent as against the 7 per cent achieved when Congress was in power,’’ he said.

Cautioning the Budget could fan inflation in the event of a Gulf war shooting up oil prices, Singh said financing government consumption by increasing revenue deficit was disastrous and would increase debt stock. With the fiscal deficit hovering around 6 per cent in the last five years, Singh said the health of the economy was not good as he expected the fiscal deficit to shoot up by 0.5 per cent of the target of 5.6 per cent of GDP.

Regretting the ‘‘cavalier attitude’’ of the Government in fixing allocation for various sectors in the Budget, Singh reeled out statistics to say that the figures were ‘‘mere repetition’’ of last year’s allocation. ‘‘This is a Budget which has unfortunately ignored the reform of tax structure,’’ Singh said.