The government on Friday, 9 November, brushed away speculations about asking for Rs 3.6 lakh crore from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as surplus transfer.
“Lot of misinformed speculation is going around in media. Government’s fiscal math is completely on track. There is no proposal to ask RBI to transfer 3.6 or 1 lakh crore, as speculated,” SC Garg, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Secretary said.
The statement comes amid growing noise of differences between the government and the central bank. Reports suggested that the conflict is centred around the government asking the RBI to transfer the entire surplus money for the financial year 2017-18 and the central bank being opposed to the idea.
On Friday, the government attempted to steer clear of the controversy with Garg saying that the only proposal under discussion is to fix RBI's apt economic capital framework.
Detailing further on the fiscal position of the government, Garg said, “Goverment’s fiscal deficit in FY 2013-14 was 5.1 percent of the GDP. 2014-15 onwards, the government has succeeded in bringing it down,” adding that the government will end the current fiscal year with fiscal deficit of 3.3 percent of the GDP.
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