Govt to widen tax base: Chidambaram

Efforts to widen the tax base and increase revenues will continue, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday.

Wooing over 300 city-based investors on the second leg of his east Asia tour, he said India is poised to grow at over 8 per cent from fiscal 2015-16 onwards.

"...efforts to keep on increasing the tax base will continue ... so that the tax revenue to the proportion of the GDP will also remain robust," he was quoted as saying by Sanjiv Bhasin, General Manager and CEO of DBS Bank, India.

The government, he said, was taking steps to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the next three to four years.

Chidambaram had on Tuesday told investors in Hong Kong that he was committed to keeping fiscal deficit to 5.3 per cent of the GDP in the current fiscal and reduce it further to 4.8 per cent in 2013-14.

As regards growth, the minister was reported to have told investors that "India has fumbled, but so has most other economies worldwide".

The growth, Chidambaram had earlier said, was not likely to be below 5.7 per cent in 2012-13 and would improve to about 6-7 per cent in the next fiscal.

Indian economy grew by 6.5 per cent in 2012-13.

The minister, according to investors attending the meeting, has said that the Indian government was making efforts to put economy back on track.