Modi Adviser Favors Putting Budget Gap Concerns on Backburner
- India targets narrowing fiscal deficit to 6.8% this year
- IMF wants nations to spend more until virus cases ebb
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
India should not let fiscal deficit worries stop it from spending more to fight the Covid-19 crisis, an adviser to Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
“If you have to spend money because you have to save both lives and livelihoods then that’s what you have to do,” Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of the federal government’s think-tank Niti Aayog, said in an interview. “Issues about fiscal space could be on the backburner.”