The Expenditure Management Commission (EMC) tasked with suggesting ways to reduce subsidies will submit its recommendations soon, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Friday."The Expenditure Management Commission has had a recent meeting and is soon coming out with a set of suggestions on how to rationalise subsidies," Jaitley said addressing the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here.Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, in August, set up the EMC, to suggest ways to reduce food, fertiliser and oil subsidies towards pruning the fiscal deficit. The commission is headed by former Reserve Bank of India governor Bimal Jalan.
The whole subsidy regime, including food and petroleum subsidies, needed to be more targeted and leave out people who do not require these, the finance minister added.The subsidy bill on food, petroleum and fertilisers for the current fiscal is estimated at Rs.2,51,397.25 crore, up 2.47 percent over the previous year. It was Rs.2,45,451.50 crore in the revised estimates for 2013-14.