The Finance Minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee today held discussions with the state Finance Ministers as part of his pre budget consultations. Tackling high rate of inflation, containing fiscal deficit, enhancing agriculture productivity, plugging the leakages in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, remained at the centre of discussions. They held detailed discussions on other issues having a bearing on the budget for the year 2011-12. The meeting is also focused on the impact of fiscal and monetary measures taken by the government to revive the economy and possibility of the gradual withdrawal of stimulus packages to check price rise. Enhancing agriculture productivity and financial inclusion were also flagged at the meeting. Mr. Mukherjee held discussions with bankers yesterday and urged them to play their role for greater financial inclusion of rural population. He pointed out that this sector has come into sharp focus after the financial crisis but Indian Banking sector had no impact of the crisis as it adapted to local conditions while carrying on reforms in this area. Mr. Mukherjee, in his pre-budget discussions, exchanged views with economists, captains of industry, agriculture experts, trade unions and NGOs to take their inputs to finalise the budget proposals for the next fiscal.