Fiscal Deficit and Public Enterprises

Fiscal Deficit and Public Enterprises S Guhan RAMASWAMY R IYER (EPW, November 2) is quite right in pointing out the error in Table 10 of my article on the union budget (EPW, August 24), By ignoring the current account surpluses of PEs, the table gives a misleading impression of the true 'fiscal deficit' of PEs. I apologise for the mistake. I would still hold that it is useful to look at the union government's fiscal deficit together with what corresponds to it in the case of central PEs in order to obtain an idea of the draft of the central public sector