Comments
The Finance Ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the annual Budget for 2020-21 from October 14 which, among other things, will have to address critical issues pertaining to the slowdown in growth and subdued revenue collection.
It will be the second Budget of both the Modi 2.0 government and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
“The pre-Budget/RE (Revised Estimate) meetings will begin on October 14, 2019. All financial advisers should ensure that the necessary details related to these meetings are contained in the RE module of the UBIS (Union Budget Information System),” a Budget Circular (2020-21) of the Budget division of the Finance Ministry’s Department of Economic Affairs said.
The Budget Estimates for 2020-21 will be provisionally finalised after the Expenditure Secretary completes discussions with other secretaries and financial advisers. Pre-Budget meetings will begin from October 14 and continue till the first week of November, it said.
“Some of the new inclusions in the circular relate to instructions regarding filling up of the scheduled caste sub-plan and tribal sub-plan, gender, child budget statements, etc,” it said.
The Budget 2019-20 is likely to be presented on February 1.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government scrapped a colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February. The then finance minister Arun Jaitley, for the first time, presented the annual accounts on February 1, 2017.
With the preponement of the Budget, ministries are now allocated their budgeted funds from the start of the financial year beginning April.
This gives government departments more leeway to spend as well as allow companies time to adapt to business and taxation plans.
Previously, when the Budget was presented at the end of February, the three-stage Parliament approval process was completed in mid-May, weeks ahead of the onset of the monsoon rains.
This meant government departments would start spending on projects only from August-end or September, after the monsoon season ended.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.