RAMJANMABHOOMI-Discreet Retreat

bequeathed by the Rajiv Gandhi government to its successor is the centre's massive budgetary deficit in the current financial year. In its latest Annual Report for 1988-89, the Reserve Bank of India had highlighted the trend which has come to prevail of the centre's budgetary deficit ruling way above the budgeted estimate almost right through the year; only in the last one or two weeks of the financial year is the figure of the deficit brought down, obviously by accounting manipulations. In 1988-89, for instance, the centre's deficit had touched a peak of Rs 10,308 crore in November-December 1988, but finally it was brought down to as low a figure as Rs 5,810 crore by the end of March 1989 (after the closure of government accounts). In the current year, according to the Reserve Bank, the government's deficit had already crossed the budgeted figure of Rs 7,337 crore by June 2, 1989 and had reached Rs 9,824 crore by June 30. The damage to the monetary system in terms of uncontrolled growth of liquidity and its repercussions on prices is not difficult to imagine.