No mandate to tweak taxes; can't keep borrowing: Mukherjee

New Delhi, Feb 16 (PTI) Indian Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee Monday said the government cannot indulge in
"reckless borrowing" and did not have Parliamentary mandate to
tweak taxes.

"I can't indulge in reckless borrowing...," he said after
presenting the interim budget for FY'10 in Parliament.

The government has pegged fiscal deficit at 5.5 percent
of Gross Domestic Product for the next financial year, against
the revised figure of 6 percent in the current financial year.

The fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal was 2.5
percent.

However, fiscal measures initiated in the wake of the
global economic downturn and reduction in revenue collection
have impacted resource mobilisation resulting in widening of
deficit.

Analysts too fear that returning to an era of high fiscal
deficit could push the country into the vicious cycle of high
inflation.

Noting that it was an interim budget, Mukherjee said he
had "some constitutional constraints" and within those he had
done whatever he could.

Asked by reporters why no stimulus package formed part
of the budget, he said stimulus packages had already been
announced twice by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and it was
reflected in his budget speech.