With the Cabinet’s approving the merger of Railway Budget with General Budget, the parliamentary panel on finance has decided to ‘examine’ the move along with its “ramifications thereof”.
Ending a 92-year-old practice, the Cabinet had decided to scrap a separate budget for railways and merge it with General Budget, presentation of which would be advanced to spur spending and boost the economy.
The Committee on Finance has selected the “Budgetary Reforms including Merger of Railways Budget with General Budget — Ramifications thereof,” according to the Lok Sabha bulletin dated September 22.
As part of a major overhaul of the budget process, the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also decided to do away with classifications of expenditure into Plan and Non-Plan, making the exercise simpler.
To facilitate early presentation of the Budget, the finance ministry had proposed that the Budget Session of Parliament be convened sometime before January 25, a month ahead of the current practice.
