Sachs for steps to deal with fiscal deficit

Sachs for steps to deal with fiscal deficit

NEW DELHI, JULY 31: Renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs today asked the Indian government to evolve "decisive programmes" to deal with burgeoning fiscal deficit. "There are many ways to attack this problem. One of this can be state level reforms," Sachs of Harvard University, said here.

``It was necessary to proceed in the telecom sector in such a way that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) could come quickly in this area,'' he said, adding India could learn from Singapore which was able to attract huge foreign investment for the telecom sector in a very short span of time.

Sachs said the target of attracting $ 10 billion every year was quite ``realistic''. He said India could also progress like China in the field of foreign trade but for that, there would be a need to have proper policies, incentives and programmes.

"Not a single policy but a set of policies should be adopted to achieve all-round growth in the sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing," he said adding the government should also concentrate on restructuring State Electricity Boards (SEBs) and improving infrastructure.