New Delhi, Apr 7: Dismissing talk of early elections, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has sent clear signals of pressing ahead with reforms agenda hoping to get Opposition's support for passage of Insurance Bill and will go for a review of FDI ceiling in various sectors.
Addressing a press conference, he expressed satisfaction over tax collections in the just ended fiscal year 2012-13 and said the worrying Current Account Deficit (CAD) will be "more tolerable and acceptable".
Giving details about plans to expand the ambitious Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme, he said cash subsidy will be transfered to LPG customers and the programme extended to cover 78 districts in May -- up from 20 launched in January.
Making it clear that the government was here to stay its full term, Chidambaram said, "there will be no earlyelections. Elections will take place on time in May, 2014."
"Why should the government expect an early election? All that I said in the last 50 minutes, does that point towards early elections? It points to completing our agenda for 2013-14 and then going for elections in the month of May," he said.
The Finance Minister also exuded confidence that the revenue target for 2013-14 financial year would be achieved as the GDP growth is likely to be over 6 per cent.
On the Bill to raise the FDI cap in insurance sector to 49 per cent from current 26 per cent, he hoped the bill will be passed soon saying the optimism stems from the fact that there is difference of opinion only with regard to one clause over which he is in touch with the main opposition party BJP for sorting it out.
Once the BJP agrees, then the government will talk to other parties, he said.
Referring to the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Chidambaram said there was a strong case for review of caps in various sectors as they were fixed a long ago.
"We (should) look at each FDI cap. If the cap is serving a purpose, we should continue with the cap, if the cap is no longer serving the purpose then we should either relax the cap or remove the cap", he said.
At present, two committees -- one under Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram and the other formed by RBI -- are looking into different aspects of the foreign investment.
He said RBI was likely to come out with its paper on FDI in two weeks time.
Asserting that CAD will come down to "more tolerable and acceptable" levels in 2012-13, he said the fourth quarter numbers will surprise by its "smallness".
The CAD, which is the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange, soared to a record high of 6.7 per cent in quarter ended December 2012. The numbers of the fourth quarter (January-March 2013) are yet to be revealed.
"The fourth quarter number, (from) whatever RBI has been able to capture, will be much smaller and the number for the whole year will be more acceptable, more tolerable", the Minister said.
The government, Chidambaram added, has been trying to check gold import and encourage exports in a bid to contain CAD.
Chidambaram said he will meet Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily shortly to decide on roll out of DBT for LPG consumers. Once the scheme is implemented, domestic cooking gas consumers will get close to Rs 4,000 yearly to enable them to buy 9 cylinders of LPG at market price.
Market price is more than double the current subsidized rate of Rs 410.50 per 14.2-kg cylinder in Delhi.
The AICC also dismissed specualtion about snap polls saying the government will complete its full tenure. "There is no question of any mid-term or early elections. Elections will be held at the scheduled time. Government will complete its full term," party spokesperson Rashid Alvi said.
