Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Sunday said that huge expenditure on welfare schemes by the Modi government has severely impacted the public finances which are currently in a mess with fiscal deficit touching abnormally high levels. Sinha in an interview with PTI said the shocking thing is nobody seems to be worried about the state of government finances, including those in the government.

"The Modi government is spending large sums of money on welfare schemes, including the free food scheme and all the rest of it. But government finances are in a mess. The fiscal deficit has touched abnormal proportions even according to the undependable figures of the government," Sinha, a senior vice-president of the Trinamool Congress, said. The country's fiscal deficit is projected to be higher at 6.9 per cent of the GDP this fiscal as against the earlier estimate of 6.8 per cent of the GDP.