PM Wants GST Rollout Done by April; Session Likely from 24 January

The Cabinet may next week take up the proposal for merging Railway Budget with the General Budget and advancing the Parliament session by about a month to 24 January so as to complete all legislative work before the beginning of the new fiscal from April.

While early convening of the budget session may become a norm in the years to come, the winter session of Parliament is likely to be convened on 12 November this year to get the supporting legislations for the GST rollout approved sooner.

Targeting to roll out the GST on 1 April next year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed that all steps required in this direction should be completed before that date.

GST Council would need to have intensive meetings to be able to make timely recommendations relating to its mandate, including proposals relating to Model GST laws, GST rates, goods and services that may be subjected to or exempted from GST.

Narendra Modi

The Finance Ministry is overhauling the Budget making exercise which may see scrapping of the current practice of presenting a separate budget for the Railways as well as shifting to multi-year outcome based budgeting, sources said.

Till now the budget session was convened in the third or fourth week of February, and the Union Budget presented on last date of the month. This led to the legislative approvals taking place in two phases spread between February and May.

In order to get all tax proposals as well as expenditure on schemes kicking in from beginning of new fiscal on 1 April, the budget session of Parliament is likely to be convened on 24 January, sources said.

The Economic Survey, that presents the state of economy, is likely to be presented on 30 January and the Union Budget on 31 January.

Appropriation as well as finance bill would thus get approved in the following two months, sources said.

Winter session of Parliament is normally convened in the third or fourth week of November, but this year the government is looking at starting the month-long session immediately after the end of festive season.

An early winter session would help get the Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) legislations, that will pave way for the Goods and Services Tax (GST), to be approved within November or latest by early December, sources said.