The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the annual Budget for 2022-23 from October 12 amidst signs of revival of the Indian economy hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget for the next year will have to address critical issues of demand generation, job creation, and putting the economy on a sustained 8 percent-plus growth path.
It will be the fourth budget of the Modi 2.0 government and Finance, Minister
The Budget Estimates (BE) for 2022-23 will be provisionally finalized after the expenditure secretary completes discussions with other secretaries and financial advisers’-Budget meetings will begin from October 12 and continue till the second week of November, it said.
"Given the special circumstances of this year, the basis of the final budgetary allocations will be overall fiscal position, and subject to that the absorptive capacity of the ministry/department," it said.
Accordingly, the RE 2021-22 and BE 2022-23 for all categories of expenditure, and select schemes/projects, maybe indicated separately for revenue and capital expenditure, it said.
For the Budget Estimates of 2022-23, it said, "the allocations will be finalized for the establishment and other central government expenditures. For the Central Sector (CS) schemes and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS), tentative ceilings would be discussed during the pre-budget meetings."
The Budget 2022-23 is likely to be presented on February 1 during the first half of the Parliament's Budget session which usually begins in the last week of January every year. The Budget for the current fiscal had projected a growth rate of about 10.5 percent in real terms while the fiscal deficit was pegged at 6.8 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led's government scrapped a colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February. Previously, when the Budget was presented at the end of February, the three-stage Parliament approval process used to get completed some time in mid-May, weeks ahead of the onset of monsoon rains.
This meant government departments would start spending on projects only from August-end or September after the monsoon season ended.