Skip to main content

Budget likely on Feb 1

Budget likely on Feb 1
The finance ministry on Wednesday issued an official circular to begin the process of drafting the Union Budget for 2018-19.

While no date was given as to when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would table the Budget in Parliament, the document stated the final estimates for schemes and other expenditures should be decided by January 15, 2018.

The Budget is likely to be presented on February 1, 2018, officials confirmed to Business Standard.

According to the circular, work begins on September 30, with the preparation of tentative Budget Estimates based on the mediumterm expenditure framework, (MTEF) which gives estimates three years out. The MTEF for the current financial year provides spending estimates for 2018-19 and 2019-20. These numbers will be the basis, or the starting point rather, for 2018-19 Budget Estimates, an official said.

There will be meetings with various central government ministries and departments, as well as industry bodies and civil society interest groups, starting from October and continuing well into December. Like 2017-18, the government will seek comments from the public at large, including through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

The circular states that the advance gross domestic product estimates from the Chief Statistician’s officer are expected by January 6, and the demand for grants is expected to be finalised by January 25.

The 2018-19 Budget will be the second one after Rail and Union Budgets were merged, and the change in spending classification to revenue and capital expenditures from the erstwhile Plan and Non-Plan expenditure. It is expected to be the last full yearly Budget before the 2019 general elections, and also the first Budget after the implantation of the goods and services tax.

The Business Standard, New Delhi, 15th September 2017

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...

Healthy balance sheets augur well for economy: RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra

  Large tariffs by the United States administration and elevated geopolitical risk have increased near-term global financial stability risks, and along with weather events pose downside risks to domestic growth, Reserve Bank of India(RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra said in the foreword to the Financial Stability Report released today.Noting that domestic growth momentum is buoyed by strong domestic drivers, sound macroeconomic fundamentals and prudent policies, Malhotra said: “External spillovers and weather-related events could pose downside risks to growth.”On the other hand, he said the outlook for inflation is benign, and there is greater confidence in the durable alignment of inflation with the Reserve Bank’s target.Commenting that the structural shifts reshaping the global economy are making policy intervention challenging, the Governor emphasised the need for central banks and financial sector regulators to remain vigilant, prudent and agile in safeguarding their economies and...