It will take 1/10th of the current expenditure on subsidy to benefit the bottom 40 per cent of the population, according to Laura Papi, Assistant Director, Asia and Pacific Department at the International Monetary Fund.
"They are not poor who are benefiting from the (fuel) subsidy," Papi told a Washington audience referring to a recent study in this regard.
"This seems to be really an area which is key to reform to get a much better and more pro-growth and more pro-poor allocation of spending.
"If the government were to target and say we will keep the benefits for the 40 per cent bottom of the population that would mean spending only 10th of what they spend now," Papi said.
Participating in a panel discussion on "The State of the Indian Economy: The Budget and Beyond" organised by the Brookings Institute, an eminent American think-tank, the IMF official said India needs to initiate a series of structural and fiscal reforms to boost up the country's growth.
"The recovery is not going to be a quick one. After the global financial crisis, the Indian economy bounced back very quickly, but this time things are very different and we
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