Government is hopeful of restricting fiscal deficit at 5.3 per cent of the GDP in the current fiscal year. A Finance Ministry official said that this is possible because of savings on certain expenditure and the likelihood of garnering budgeted proceeds from disinvestment and spectrum sale.

In the Winter Session of Parliament, the government had sought an additional 28,500 crore rupees to meet the rising fuel subsidy bill. The official said to control expenditure, the government had raised the diesel prices by over 5 rupees per litre and limit the

supply of subsidised LPG cylinders to six per family per year. He said plans are afoot to speed up the disinvestment process in the next two-and-a-half months to meet the target.