Inaugurating the Hyderabad zonal meeting of the customs and central excise officials here, he defended as realistic the levels of targets fixed in the Budget despite some sectors of the economy being caught in a slow down phase over a couple of years. The targets were fixed consciously and there would be no occasion for lame excuse, he warned.

Stating that it was possible to improve the revenue even in the present condition through more energetic collection, he said every revenue collector should rise to the occasion to meet the challenge.

He said slippage in fiscal deficit last year was mainly because of the shortfall in the revenue and not due to excess in the expenditure target.Saying that he would soon be calling a meeting of officials of his ministry and various other ministries at New Delhi on the expenditure target, Sinha said he was pinning his hope on the turnaround of the country's economy later this year as a result of various steps envisaged by the government in the budget and subsequently.

He said India could still be a favourite destination for foreign investment as the mighty economies are being caught in all kinds of trouble -- an apparent reference to Japan and the `Asian tigers'. The foreign investment can come in only if the fiscal deficit was contained.

He claimed that the whole world was looking at India, especially when the world economy is in turmoil as the whole lot of people were disenchanted (in investing) in the emergent economies.

Sinha said he had ``hit the roads'' immediately after the budget session to understand the problems of the field formations. That he had already undertaken three reviews at New Delhi and Bangalore showed that the government intended to work more vigorously, honestly and transparently, he added.

The Hyderabad meeting was a far more intensive review after the initial review of region was done at the southern zone meeting recently concluded at Bangalore in Karnataka to ascertain how the (revenue) collections were on and how the industry was doing, he said.