The Finance Ministry on Tuesday set up a new committee to review the Centre’s fiscal roadmap and review the working of the related Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act that was enacted in 2003.

The panel will be headed by former Member of Parliament and former Revenue and Expenditure Secretary NK Singh. Chief Economic Advisor to the Finance Ministry Arvind Subramanian, former Finance Secretary Sumit Bose, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Urjit Patel and NIPFP Director Rathin Roy will be its members.

“The Committee will make its assessment and provide its views on the expected impact of the expected impact of its recommendations on the general government deficit and other FRBM parameters,” said the Finance Ministry, adding that it will submit its report by October 31, 2016.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had in the Union Budget 2016-17 announced that the government would set up a committee to review and give recommendations on the FRBM roadmap for the future and whether it should move from a fixed target to a range and aligned with credit contraction or expansion.

“The FRBM Act has been under implementation for more than a decade,” he had noted at the time.

Accordingly, the committee would be expected to look into various aspects, factors and considerations for determining the FRBM target.

“It will also determining the need and feasibility of having a ‘fiscal deficit range’ as the target in place of the existing fiscal deficit numbers…and aligning the ‘fiscal expansion or contraction’ with ‘credit contraction of expansion’ respectively in the economy,” said the Finance Ministry.

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