says for universal basic income to come into practice, the existing set of subsidies will have to go.Edited excerpts:I think Arvind Subramanian’s idea which of course is now being globally discussed is a wonderful idea.And in the economic survey which I must say is one of the best drafted documents that I have ever read, he has put it as Gandhi ji’s idea that it is the responsibility of the state that the poorest, the Daridra Narayana have some income in his hand. Now you look at it from another point of view. You take all the subsidies of the state which the state is giving. Both you and I till recently were getting LPG subsidy. We are even today getting kerosene subsidy in Delhi. We gave Rs 55000 crore to railways as a subsidy. When you travel by a air conditioned compartment you and I will get a subsidy, in fertiliser forget the poor even the rich man gets a subsidy.Now subsidies are untargeted. We talk of targeting it, we have substantially used the platform for targeting it. Similarly the states are giving it as well. The welfare in the states is far higher now. You add all these subsidies and let us say 30-35% of the families instead of these subsidies, give them a basic income cheque. They can do some additional work through MNREGA or some more unorganised sector employment and earn a little more. It has to be targeted so that it reaches the poorest does not reach anybody else.The difficulty that I see is that India’s politics is yet to mature and in a politics which has not matured you will have a kind of demand for continuing the existing set of subsidies and give universal basic income which is something which is not possible. The universal basic income is an alternative to the current structure of subsidies and therefore if India’s politics can mature, .Arvind’s idea can be used for future debate.I think it is a idea whose time should come and I think Indian politics if it is able to rise to a certain level of maturity must get an opportunity to…Where are the resources?I want to put in that mechanism. We are discussing it, reason being there is already a provision for declaring a person a proclaimed offender, attaching his assets. Then there is an issue that those assets, some of them, may have to be made available to financial institutions because there are several issues which will have to be resolved in that process and therefore I have indicated the intention of the government. I have already got an expert group informally looking at it and as soon as it is ready I will put it in public space.No, I do not want to get into names but you see this whole phenomenon of using the Indian system, breaking the law and then going and happily settling down somewhere in the world and I am very disappointed, I have heard of various havens for the absconders but London being the centre of a civilised country or one of the most civilised democracies in the world to become a haven for these people is something disheartening.No budget discussion can be complete without a discussion on fiscal consolidation and you have raised this target to 3.2%. While it is understandable in the current situation, you also indicated that it will be 3% the following year. What is the NK Singh Committee Report and more particularly there is this big debate going on about what should be the government’s approach towards debt as a percentage of GDP . Should that also be a yardstick? As a finance minister what is your perspective on this?The NK Singh Committee has expressed two views. The members have expressed a view that this year you should bring down 3.5%-3%, give a pause for a period of three years and then go down further. That is the predominant view. There is an alternate view suggested in the same direction which does not talk of the pause which says over the next five years have a glide path of 0.2% each year and 3.5 will become 2.5 and 0.2 burden each year will be an absorbable burden. That is Arvind’s view. So you have one graph which goes like this and the other graph which is gliding, both the graphs are in the same direction so I take them as parallel views.This year, I was faced with the option of spending more because others are not spending I have to spend more. So can I take a 0.5 hit which is something as high as 85000 crores less expenditure, I tried to balance it, I could not. If my revenue estimates go wrong and instead of 12% tax buoyancy I am able to have 14-15%, I will probably try and reach that.You see debt to GDP is historically accumulated and therefore if you were to bring it down you have to bring your current deficits down that is where we are struggling at at the moment. So even my revenue deficit now compared to last year I have brought it down, I am in fact 0.1% ahead of the target. And this coming year I have fixed it at 1.9.The committee on allowances of government employees which was suggested by Pay Commission I believe has finalised its report but there is no provision made in the numbers in your budget?You see when they fixed the various departmental figures, they factored in the likely expenditure of establishment cost, like the Pay Commission was last year factored in, similarly that is factored in.You had promised to India Inc that you will bring it down their corporate tax rate to 25% over a period of four-five years and next year will be your last budget in the tenure of this government so do we take it that this tax reduction will have to wait a little longer?I had linked it to phasing out the exemptions. Now should I phase out exemptions ahead of time? The answer is no because companies are not in the best of health.I do not want to inflict one more pain on them and therefore as my ability in phasing out exemptions improves I have in accordance with that followed my promise so the trend I am following is the same and today what I have done, I have extended it to a very large part of India’s corporates. The big boys who are left out I think are big enough to take care of themselves at the moment.