New Delhi9 months ago
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The Finance Ministry will start pre-budget bills for the budget of FY 2024-25 from today, October 10. These bills will run till November 14. In collaboration with different ministries, the Finance Ministry will finalize the fundamental estimates of 2023-24 and the budget estimates of 2024-25.
General elections will be held in early 2024, so this will be the last budget of Modi Government 2.0. At the same time, this will be the sixth budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. She presented her first full budget in July 2019. It is expected that the budget for 2024-25 will be presented on 1 February 2024.
Budget is an account of the year’s expenses and income
Just as we need a budget to run our home, similarly a budget is needed to run the country. The budget we make for our home is usually for a month.
In this we keep a record of how much we spent and earned this month. Similarly, the country’s budget is also there. It contains the account of the year’s expenditure and income. It is presented every year.
The entire budget process
1. First of all, the Finance Ministry has issued a circular to all ministries, states, union territories, autonomous governments to prepare estimates for the new year. Apart from giving estimates for the new year, they also have to give the burden of expenditure and income of the previous year.
2. After receiving the estimates, the top officials of the Central Government are following its footsteps. There is an in-depth discussion on this between the concerned ministries and the officials of the Department of Expenditure. After this, the report is sent to the Finance Ministry.
3. The Finance Ministry after considering all claims, determines the revenue entitled for their expenditure. The Department of Revenue and Financial Affairs works to deeply understand the challenges farmers and small traders face and interact with foreign exchange traders.
4. In the pre-budget cover, the Finance Minister meets the concerned parties to know their proposals and provisions. These include representatives of the states, bankers, agricultural scientists, economists and representatives of the employee organization. After the pre-budget confusion is over, the Finance Minister takes the final decision on all the states. Before finalizing the budget, the Finance Minister also talks to the Prime Minister.
5. A few days before the presentation of the budget, there is a Halwa Ceremony. Halwa prepared with great preparation is served to the staff of the Finance Ministry. With this, the printing process of the budget begins. The officers and supporting staff involved in the process remain in the ministry till the budget is presented. This financial year’s budget was not printed and its soft copy was given to the members of Parliament.
6. The Finance Minister presents the General Budget in the Lok Sabha. Until 2016, it was presented on the last day of February. From 2017, it started being presented on 1 February every year. This year, for the first time, all the budget documents were made available on the Union Budget Mobile.