Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will meet industry leaders on Tuesday in pre-budget consultations getting the first opportunity to present him their wish-list that includes continuation of stimulus.

Mukherjee called industry representatives, mainly heads of three industry bodies - the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), revealed industry sources.

They said the industry was apprehensive that the government may withdraw the stimulus in the Budget for 2010-11 in the face of growing fiscal deficit, pegged at 6.8 percent of the gross domestic product for the current fiscal.

The government had injected since September 2008 three stimulus packages amounting to Rs 2,22,000 crore to propel economic growth which were in tandem with the measures taken by the Reserve Bank of India to make available more liquidity to the cash-starved industry.

Largely helped by the stimulus, the industrial growth accelerated back to over 10 percent for the month of October.

The growth in factory output had dipped to 1.4 percent in April, the opening month of the current fiscal, under the impact of the global slowdown.

The industry leaders are also likely to press for continuation of the soft interest rates regime despite food inflation almost touching 20 percent. They argue that food inflation is a seasonal phenomenon and not related to interest rates.

On Wednesday last week, Mukherjee had said that the government was unlikely to withdraw the stimulus packages hastily as domestic firms would be hit in case the global economy collapses.

But at the same time, the Finance Minister had also said that it was impossible to sustain high fiscal deficit for long.