The Budget presentation starts with a speech by the finance minister which is the most essential element of the Budget documents, despite the fact that it is only a minor part of them.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the interim Budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 on February 1, 2024. This would be her sixth consecutive Budget since 2019. Since this is coinciding with the general elections year which is scheduled for early next year, the finance minister will present the interim Budget instead of a full Budget for the fiscal year 2024-24. The Budget is allotted for the upcoming fiscal year, which runs from 1st April to 31st March of the next year.
All the documents of the Budget are uploaded onto http://www.indiabudget.gov.in within hours of the finance minister’s speech in Parliament.
The Budget presentation
The Budget presentation starts with a speech by the finance minister which is the most essential element of the Budget documents, despite the fact that it is only a minor part of them.
Now, this speech can be broken down into two halves. Part A announces planned schemes for different sectors of the economy like health, education, services, banking and other financial services, rural and urban sectors, capital markets, SMEs, MSMEs, large businesses, and infrastructure development among others. It also includes the different welfare schemes planned for the targeted groups like women, farmers, and students besides the Budget targets like fiscal deficit, divestment and government borrowings, etc.
Part B of the Budget document, meanwhile, carries direct and indirect tax announcements (excluding GST). It also contains announcements on any changes in income tax slabs, corporate tax, capital gains tax, customs and excise duties in the coming fiscal. After Part B comes the annex, which provides a summary of the tax announcements, and the Budgeted spending on various schemes, programmes and ministries. Interesting to note, for the past two years, the annex has been containing details on how much of the Budget is being funded through extra-Budgetary resources, apart from the tax and non-tax revenue and borrowing programme.
While every chapter has highlights and executive summaries for convenient reading, one can seek up ‘Budget at a Glance’ to rapidly go over the Budget. This section of the Budget document shows in brief, receipts and disbursements along with broad details of tax, non-tax revenues and other receipts and plan and non-plan expenditure, including allocation of plan outlays by sectors as well as by the ministries, departments and details of resources transferred by the Central Government to states and union territories. This document also shows the revenue deficit, the gross primary deficit and the gross fiscal deficit of the Central Government. It contains the details of the planned subsidies on fuel, fertilizer, and food and also the GDP growth target for the coming fiscal.
Then, the revenue and expenditure documents comprise details of the various sources of revenue and heads of expenditure. Here, the revenue document gives details of revenue generation – how much revenue is expected from income tax, corporate tax, GST, excise duty etc, and also from non-tax sources like disinvestment, privatization, telecom and aviation, etc. Expenditure document gives a ministry-wise expenditure breakdown of the Budget on anything including defence, education, healthcare, MGNREGA, administrative spending, specific infrastructure projects, PM Kishan, etc.
Moving ahead is the Finance Bill which is presented in fulfilment of the requirement of Article 110(1)(a) of the Constitution, detailing the imposition, abolition, remission, alteration or regulation of taxes proposed in the Budget. The Budget has to be passed by the Lok Sabha and then it goes to the Rajya Sabha, where it goes through lengthy debates and the finance minister replies to all the queries. What is passed is the Finance Bill, which puts into law the Budget, as well as amending other acts like the RBI Act, Income Tax Act, Companies Act, Banking Regulation Act, based on whatever measure has been announced. The Finance Bill/Act gives legal backing to the Budget.
Besides these, there are other documents including Medium Term Fiscal Policy, which have been mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. In this, the central government projects fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, gross tax and non-tax revenue and central government debt two years into the future, beyond the coming financial year.
Source:financialexpress.com