Nobel laureate Abhijit banerjee on the approaching 2020 budget: Restricting essential funds won’t help as ‘fiscal deficit already breached with wide margin’

Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee commenting on the approaching 2020 budget said he won’t suggest tightening the fiscal deficit as it is already breached with a wide margin.

“Fiscal deficit has been breached by a huge margin already. In that sense, I don’t think that it’s a big deal to breach it more. I wouldn’t be supporting fiscal tightening right now,” news agency ANI quoted him as saying. The union government, yesterday had started austerity measures to help grip the slipping economy with a 20 percent slash in all unimportant expenses. The education sector is going to get a slash of 3000 crores. When asked to comment on the education expenses being choked Abhijit Banerjee said education is always a state subject and the state is already spending so less in the sector. Reducing education expenses by 3000 crores will be like ‘withholding a drop from the ocean’.

Abhijit Banerjee earlier had raised the alarm that the nation is at the brim of a very deep recession and had advised triggering the demand to help revive the economy.