Finance Minister P Chidambaram is confident of containing fiscal deficit for 2013-14 at 4.6 per cent of the GDP. Chidambaram was speaking in the Parliament while presenting the interim budget 2014. He also spoke about several highlights of the government’s performance during the year. He denied that there was any policy paralysis in the government. He expected the growth in the third and fourth quarter would be at least 5.3 per cent.
The Finance Minister doesn’t see any lull in capex programmes of PSUs. “In 2013-14, the PSUs will achieve a new high of capital expenditure of Rs 2,57,641 crore,” he said. He also highlighted various achievements of UPA government during the current financial year. “In the first nine months of the current financial year, we have set up 29,350 MW of power generation capacity, 28,900 km of National Highways, 39,144 km of rural roads, 3,343 km of new railway tracks and 7 new airports are under construction.” Also 8 national manufacturing zones have been approved along the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. He also said that the government planned to take up four projects each with capacity of 400 MW under National Solar Mission phase 2.