CALCUTTA, MAR 31: Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha today said that the Centre's borrowings programme had been earmarked at Rs 57,000 crore during the financial year 1999-2000.Talking to reporters here, the finance minister said that huge borrowings by the government from the market would possibly crowd out private parties. Sinha said that the most important thing for the government at the moment was the management of finances, including tackling of fiscal deficit.According to him, the government's aim to bring down the fiscal deficit to four per cent of GDP would largely be missed if the revenue deficit was not eliminated. The finance minister also said that his target was to bring down the fiscal deficit down to two per cent of GDP.Stating that management of government finances would be within the sphere of consolidation of reforms of the first phase, Sinha said that he was preparing a paper on second generation of reforms, which would be presented in the Parliament once the draft was finalisedat the end of April.He said that the rise in fiscal deficit was largely due to the increase in internal liability, which shot up to Rs 8,10,000 crore in 1998 from Rs 2,80,000 crore in 1991.On reforms in the indirect taxes front, the finance minister said that he was inclined to introduce central VAT system in 2000-2001, provided the measures which he had adopted in the 1999-2000 budget regarding rationalisation of slabs proved encouraging.According to him, the whole system of tax compliance would be made transparent and simplified which would attract more people into the tax net.On direct taxes, he said that the income tax department had received nearly 1.68 crore applications for allotment of permanent account numbers (PAN). He expressed hope that the number of PAN applicants would rise to two crore in future.He also said that the decline in tax-to-GDP ratio from 11.5 per cent in 1991 to 9.2 per cent at the moment would have to be reversed. According to estimates, nearly Rs 45,000 crore wouldbe mobilised as additional revenue from this count at the end of Ninth Five Year Plan.Earlier, while addressing the 72nd annual general meeting of a city-based chamber of commerce here, he said that the Indian industry would have to be competitive on country's soil.He was also contemplating to graduate the level of tariff barriers to those of Asian countries.
