India's Pranab Mukherjee defends 'zero-risk' budget

19 March 2012 Last updated at 02:03 ET Help

India's finance minister has defended the government's zero-risk budget, conceding he could not afford to undertake any bold economic reforms.

Pranab Mukherjee steered clear of contentious reforms in last Friday's budget and fixed a higher than expected fiscal deficit target that avoided tough public spending cuts.

But he told Shilpa Kannan from the BBC's India Business Report programme that politics did not overshadow economics.

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