The Cabinet may next week take up the proposal for merging Railway Budget with the General Budget and advancing the Parliament session by about a month to January 24 so as to complete all legislative work before the beginning of the new fiscal from April.
While early convening of the Budget Session may become a norm in the years to come, the Winter Session of Parliament is likely to be convened on November 12 this year to get the supporting legislations for the GST rollout approved early.
The Finance Ministry is overhauling the Budget making exercise which may see scrapping of the current practice of presenting a separate budget for the Railways as well as shifting to multi-year outcome based budgeting, sources said.
Till now the Budget Session was convened in the third or fourth week of February, and the Union Budget presented on last date of the month. This led to the legislative approvals taking place in two phases spread between February and May.
In order to get all tax proposals as well as expenditure on schemes kicking in from beginning of new fiscal on April 1, the budget session of Parliament is likely to be convened on January 24, sources said.
The Economic Survey, that presents the state of economy, is likely to be presented on January 30 and the Union Budget on January 31.
Appropriation as well as finance bill would thus get approved in the following two months, sources said.
