Interim Budget: Govt's achievements to guide FM speech

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government will present an interim Budget on Friday, February 1. There will be no Economic Survey before the Budget.

Setting at rest speculation on whether it would be an interim Budget or a full-fledged one, the finance ministry on Wednesday said, “it will be an interim Budget”.

There will be an appropriation bill to allow expenditure for the next three-four months. But there may or may not be a Finance Bill, which deals with taxation proposals.

In case the government decides to amend the Income Tax Act or any other Act, they will have to bring a Finance Bill.

An interim Budget does not bar the government from introducing any tax proposals. However, an outgoing government, closer to elections, generally avoids to get into taxation details, an official in the finance ministry told DH.

He said Minister-in-charge of Finance Piyush Goyal will present the Budget and most probably seek Parliament’s approval for incurring expenditure for three-four months until a new government is installed after the general elections.

He will present the estimates for the full year, as is the case with the regular Budget. In case, the new government is the same dispensation, it will go by their estimate presented in the interim government. If a new dispensation takes over, it can change the estimates.

The government has already sought full-year Budget requirements from certain ministries including railways, rural development and agriculture.

The government will also come out with a status report on the economy comprising three to four pages. It will be attached to the interim Budget, which itself will be a short and crisp document. The finance minister's speech will be shorter than usual and will mainly concentrate on the achievements of the government in the past five years.

Schemes related to poor and their implementation such as Ujjawlla Yojana will find larger space in the Budget speech.

Before the interim Budget, President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday will outline the achievements of the NDA government and set out a roadmap for the future.