New Delhi, December 27
Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said that it was necessary to contain the fiscal deficit which may lead to some measures which may be painful.

Addressing the National Development Council (NDC) meeting here, Chidambaram said it was imperative to contain the fiscal deficit by augmenting resources and controlling expenditure. “Some measures may cause immediate pain but this was necessary to ensure that the fiscal deficit came down to 3 per cent in the next three years”, he said.

Steps were also being taken to contain the Current Account Deficit (CAD), he added and there was need to control gold imports which contributed $ 64 billion to the CAD. Chidambaram appreciated the states for containing the fiscal deficit to 2.1 per cent of the GDP and also for generating revenue surplus of 0.75 per cent.

The Finance Minister expressed optimism that the Indian economy will continue to grow at a healthy rate even as the global economies face recession. This, he said, is because the economy has strong fundamentals and factors such as high savings rate, growing services sector, a large middle class which continues to create demand and technical and qualified manpower and the youth.