We presented true figures, did not make adjustments: Goyal

Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said Friday the government wanted to give a true picture of the accounts in the Budget, and did not resort to any "adjustment" for misrepresenting the fiscal slippage.

The comments come in the backdrop of concerns raised from various quarters, including global rating agencies, about the government's move to up spending in a way that it slipped on the 3.3 per cent deficit target for FY19 and also went for a wider 3.4 per cent in FY20.

Speaking at a post-budget consultation with the industry, Goyal also said rounding-off of decimals is resulting in the slippage, pointing out that the deficit will come at 3.367 per cent, while the same for FY20 is 3.349 per cent that gets rounded off to 3.4 per cent.

Beyond the optics, Goyal said it was the government's commitment to transparency which resulted in the actual statement of accounts and recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also advised the same in pre-budget discussions.

"If I wanted to, this required only an adjustment of Rs 5,017 crore in a budget of Rs 25 lakh crore for achieving the fiscal deficit target," he said.

Similarly, an adjustment of Rs 1,250 crore would have taken the FY20 fiscal deficit number to 3.3 per cent, he said.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)