The incumbent government is all set to present the last budget of their term in Parliament on February 1.
The last budget presented before the general elections by the current government is known as the Interim Budget. An interim budget, an annual financial statement of government finances, covers a smaller period of time, usually a few months.
The printing of the Budget 2019 documents has already started with a ‘halwa ceremony’; this tradition embarks the beginning of printing budget process.
Here are the 10 things you need to know about the Union Budget of India:
a. Union Budget is an annual statement of all the government’s revenue and expenses for a particular financial year, which is from April 1 to March 31.
b. The report contains revenue from all the sources and expenditure for all the activities.
c. Budget is prepared by the Budget Division of the Finance Ministry, after the consultation with all the other ministries.
d. It is presented by the Finance Minister in the Parliament.
e. The whole process of the budget comprises of the budget speech, annual financial statement, finance bill and macroeconomic framework.
f. From economists to the ordinary people, all eyes remain on the budget announcements for any changes in the policies for the coming financial year.
g. A full budget follows interim Budget by the new government after the elections are over. The last interim budget was presented on February 17, 2014, by P. Chidambaram. A full budget followed it on July 10, 2014.
h. Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha changed the ritual of presenting the budget at 11 am in his 1999 budget. Until the year 1999, the union budget was presented at 5 pm on the last working day of February.
i. Arun Jaitley became the first finance minister to announce a combined Union Budget with Rail Budget in 2017. Earlier, the railway budget was presented a few days before the Union Budget.
j. This Interim Budget will be presented by Piyush Goyal, our Interim Finance Minister on February 1 and also include the railway subject.
I am an aspiring Chartered Accountant. I spend most of my free time dredging through the various Indian finance subreddits. I am a semi-professional bowler with a high strike rate every time there is a new tax reform!
