The series of actions taken by Modi government in recent times tells us about the pro-activeness about the government. They are targeting the major areas which have a long-term impact on the development of our nation.
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Read more: The Union Budget- What Comes in and What Goes out?
Recent changes in the Union Budget
The Union government has made few recent changes in the budgetary procedure.
The government has decided to change the 92-year-old practice by unifying general and rail budget.
This budget document is also getting slimmer due to no mention about the indirect taxes like service tax, excise duties etc which will be replaced by GST (Goods and Service tax) in the days to come.
The previous Plan and non-Plan expenditure will also be replaced with revenue and capital expenditure.
Also Read: The Union Budget 2017-18 – Tax Relief to Individual Taxpayers
Moreover, the cabinet has also approved to prepone the Union Budget 2017-18 by about a month time from the last day of February to a suitable date.
The exact date will be confirmed in sometime after taking care of the elections to be held in certain states.
The budget preparation would start from this month and GDP estimate will also be advanced one month to January 7 from the earlier February 7.
Why government decided to pre-pone the budget date?
The reason for early completion of union budget was to ensure better planning and proper execution from the very beginning of the financial year.
The government wants the entire budgetary procedure to be completed, finance bill to be passed and get implemented from the beginning of the fiscal year rather than June by the time monsoon starts.
Smart move by the Modi government
There can be another angle to this. With the assembly elections to be held in five states, it is possible that budget schedule may clash with the polling and campaigning. So BJP would definitely like to benefit this opportunity.
The government, in order to win the confidence of the voters in the assembly election, may provide special packages to these states.
Demerit
The main demerit of advancing the date is that the government will not have expenditure and revenue data for the first nine months of the financial year.
Bottomline
The implementation of the GST by the government would be an achievement. But the GST rate is yet to be fixed by GST council which comprises of finance minister and representative of all Indian states.
