Seventh Pay Commission, OROP Will
Not Impact Fiscal Deficit: Jayant Sinha
NEW DELHI: Increase in salary
bill due to Seventh Pay Commission and Implementation of One Rank One Pension
(OROP) will not strain government’s fiscal position, Minister of State for
Finance Jayant Sinha today said.
Minister of State for Finance
Jayant Sinha
“I think we are in a very good
shape as far as fiscal management is concerned. That was appreciated by all
economists,” he said while interacting with reporters after a meeting of
economists which was chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at NITI Aayog.
He made it clear that the
government’s fiscal position is strong enough to bear the impact of
implementation of Seventh Pay Commission and OROP.
The Seventh Pay Commission report
in December is expected to recommend a hike in salary of central government
employees. OROP is likely to result in an outgo of Rs 8,000-10,000 crore this
fiscal.
The pre-Budget meeting discussed
various issues, including agriculture productivity, job creation and fiscal
expenditure.
“We had some of India’s most
eminent economists and commentators there. Obviously, it is very early in the
cycle to start the consultation. But we felt that if there were good ideas, we
could incorporate them even in this fiscal year. Obviously, for the preparation
of the current budget, we could begin the work on that right now,” he said.
“It was very good interaction and
we look forward to incorporating much of this for this fiscal year as well as
coming fiscal.”
There were several topics that
came up, Sinha said, adding that “one very important topic that we spent time
on is agriculture and what we could do to increase productivity in
agriculture”.
The meeting also dwelt at length
on fiscal expenditure and how to ensure fiscal expenditure, particularly public
investment, could be as productive as possible.
“Third major area that we spoke
about is obviously the financial sector… more credit for agriculture, MSMEs and
what could we do further to strengthen our banks. The final area that we also
spent time on is how to ensure we are able to create more jobs for young
people, whether it is in the manufacturing sector or the service sector,” he
said.
NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind
Panagariya, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian and Reserve Bank Deputy
Governor Urjit Patel were present.
Besides, the meeting was attended
by Finance Secretary Ratan P Watal, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das,
Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia and Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chib
Duggal.
Economists such as Subir Gokarn,
Director of Research at the Brookings Institution India, Ajit Ranade, Chief
Economist, Aditya Birla Group, and Rajiv Lall, Vice-Chairman IDFC Ltd, also
participated.
Inputs with PTI
Regards, E.R.Iyer
