December is ideal Budget time, secretaries panel advises PM

After forming several groups of top Central secretaries and asking them to suggest innovative ideas on good governance, a panel on innovative budgeting suggested to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that to ensure funds reach states and Central ministries at the start of each financial year, the Union Budget should be advanced and presented in December, not February.

Sources told this newspaper the group of secretaries on Innovative Budgeting and Effective Implementation made this suggestion in a presentation before the PM recently.

The panel’s logic was that by doing so, funds for each Central department and states can be wrapped up by March 31, so when the new financial year begins no state or department will be short of funds to implement their programmes and schemes.

When the Budget is presented on the last working day of February every year, it takes two to three months for funds to be allocated to each Central department and the states. Therefore, sources said, it is only by June or July that states and ministries can utilise the funds allotted to them in the Budget.

By advancing the Budget presentation to December, the funds allocation process can be completed by March, thus states and departments can plan the expenditure properly.

Some Union ministers present, however, raised doubts on the feasibility of this proposal, saying it might disturb the parliamentary schedule.