In a bid to arrest India's widening fiscal deficit, the Congress-led UPA government on Wednesday introduced a slew of austerity measures.

The list of austerity measures includes a freeze on new appointments, barring government officials from executive class air travel and preventing various departments from holding conferences in five-star hotels.

All ministries and departments were asked not to buy new vehicles and make new appointments or fill posts lying vacant for at least next one year.

A circular issued by the Finance Ministry said, "Such measures are intended at promoting fiscal discipline . In the context of the current fiscal situation, there is a need to continue to rationalise expenditure and optimise available resources."

The government has long been struggling to check the country's fiscal deficit from going out of control, mainly to sluggish economic growth and lower-than-targeted tax collections.

The austerity measures are aimed at slashing non-plan expenditure by 10 per cent, and enable the government to achieve its aim to restrict the fiscal deficit to the budgeted figure of 4.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in FY2013-14.