Cabinet Scraps British-Era Practice of a Separate Railway Budget

The Railway Budget, a 92-year-old practice, will now be merged with the annual general budget.

Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. (Photo: PTI)

The cabinet put an end to the 92-year-old practice of presenting the Railway Budget separately on Wednesday. The Railway Budget will now be merged with the annual budget starting 2017.

The speculation was made official after the annual budget meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The ministry has reportedly put together a five-member committee of officers to iron out the workings of the exercise.

The idea was first mooted in a report titled “Dispensing with the Rail Budget,” jointly authored by National Institution for Transforming India (Niti) Aayog member Bibek Debroy and Officer on Special Duty, Kishore Desai, reports BloombergQuint.

Also breaking from tradition, the general budget of the union government is likely to be presented on 1 February instead of the last day of the month – a colonial-era norm – as part of the same overhaul that has scrapped the separate railway budget.

Soon after the meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressed a press conference on the cabinet briefing.

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