The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the merger of the Railway and General Budgets from 2017-18, ending a 92-year-old colonial tradition. It also cleared abolishing the classification of Plan and non-Plan expenditure in the Budget and agreed in-principle to advancing its presentation in Parliament from the last working day in February. The government wants the Finance Bill to be passed before April 1. “The government is in favour of advancing the Budget date. However, a number of states are going to the polls early next year. We will take a call on a new date after studying the election calendar,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are slated to go to the polls early next year. Suresh Prabhu will be the last railway minister to have presented a Budget and Jaitley will be the first finance minister to present a combined one next year. “India was the only country with a separa