Budget 2024: How the Union Budget is prepared? A quick guide
Nirmala Sitharaman will rise in the Lok Sabha on February 1 to present the Union Budget 2024-25. It will be an interim Budget as the elections for the Lok Sabha are due early next year. The full Budget for FY25 will be presented after the formation of the new government following the general elections.
The Union Budget contains details about the estimated receipts and the expenditure of the government for a particular fiscal year. The Budget is allotted for the upcoming fiscal year, which runs from 1st April to 31st March of the next year. Here is a quick guide on how the Union Budget is prepared.
As we all know the fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31, requiring parliamentary approval of the budget before April 1. As the budget-making is a long process, it takes months of planning, consulting and compiling to create the final draft of the budget. Hence the process begins almost six months before the financial statement is presented in Parliament, commencing deliberations in August-September of the previous year.
As a first step towards the budget-making process, the union finance ministry issues circulars to all ministries, states, union territories, and autonomous entities asking them to prepare estimates for the upcoming financial year. These circulars include skeletal forms along with necessary guidelines for helping the ministries to present their demands. All ministries, UTs, and autonomous bodies are supposed to disclose their earnings and expenses for the previous year in addition to offering estimates.
The proposals sent by all the ministries, UTs are received by the revenue secretary. The proposals are thoroughly reviewed by top government officials. The Department of Expenditures and Niti Aayog conduct
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