Ushering in sweeping changes to the budget tabling process in the Lok Sabha, the government is planning to present the Union Budget in January-end, a move away from the British-era norm of tabling it on the last day of February.
The finance ministry is overhauling the budgeting process, which will include the scrapping of the practice of presenting a separate budget for the railways and budget documents getting slimmer with indirect tax proposals finding almost no mention after excise duties, service tax and cesses are subsumed under the proposed goods and service tax (GST) regime.
Abolition of the distinction between Plan and non-Plan expenditure, to be replaced with capital and revenue expenditure is also being planned.
Sources said the government felt the Budget exercise should ideally be over by March 31.
There is no mandated date for the presentation of the Budget, however, the normal practice entails that it is presented on the last working day of February which is followed by a two-stage process of parliamentary approvals taking it over the April 1, the start of the new financial year.
The revenue department is also mulling preponing its pre-budget meetings with various stakeholders to September instead of holding them in November/December.
The expenditure department in its pre-budget meetings with various other ministries and government departments will this time around seek for details of their envisaged 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 expenditureGovernment Source
(With PTI inputs)
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