Government mulls presenting Budget by January end

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi-The Union Budget has for decades been presented on the last day of February, but this could soon change with the government mulling advancing it to January-end, to complete the exercise before the beginning of the new financial year. The finance ministry is overhauling the Budget-making exercise, which may see 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.

Also on cards is the abolition of the distinction between Plan and non-Plan expenditure, to be replaced with capital and revenue expenditure .Sources said the government felt the Budget exercise should ideally be over by March 31, against the practice of it being done in two phases between February and May.

While the Constitution does not mandate any specific date for presentation of the Budget, it is usually presented on the last working day of February and the two-stage process of parliamentary approval takes it to mid-May. As the financial year begins on April 1, the government in March takes Parliament approval for Vote on Account for a sum of money sufficient to meet expenditure on various items for two to three months. The Demands and Appropriation Bill, entailing full-year expenditure and tax changes, is then passed in April/May.