Finance Ministry Considers Advancing Union Budget to January
BENGALURU: For decades, the annual Union Budget has been presented on the last day of February, keeping up with the tradition initiated by the British. However, the Modi-led BJP government seems to be engrossed on the dereliction of anything that reminds us of the bygone colonial era. According to the latest reports, the government is planning to advance the Union Budget by a month; that is to the end of January.
"We have not decided the date but it may be at the end of January," a source was quoted saying to the Times of India. The thought behind this move is to guarantee that the Finance Bill is approved by the two houses of the parliament before the start of the fiscal year on April 1. Consequently, this will help the finance ministry dispense all central government departments with the necessary allocations to work with from the first day. As of now, the Finance Bill is approved by the first or second week of May, which makes it difficult for government departments to cope with, during the early months of a fiscal year.
Furthermore, the government has decided to scrap the 92-year old tradition of a separate Railway Budget. From the next fiscal year, the Railway Budget is set to be merged with the General Budget and policy decisions like passenger fare hikes will be upon the mercy of the finance minister. In addition, the annual financial document for 2017-18 is likely to see another major overhaul with the abolition of 'plan and non-plan expenditure' and replacing it with 'capital and revenue expenditure'.
The expenditure department in its pre-budget meetings with various other ministries and government departments will seek for details of their forecasted revenue and capital expenditure from April 2017-March 2018."States are being consulted for capital and revenue expenditure classification. An internal group is working on it. This will give the right direction in simplification of accounts and also how we focus on expenditure," another source said.
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