People familiar with the matter said the government plans to convene the budget session of Parliament before 25 January 2017. Photo: MintNew Delhi: Breaking from tradition, the general budget of the Union government is likely to be presented on 1 February instead of the last day of the month, as part of an overhaul that would also scrap the practice of a separate railway budget. The proposal for advancing of the budget and the merger of the railway budget with it will be considered on Wednesday at a meeting of the Union cabinet to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been pushing for it. Even after the separate railway budget is scrapped and its proposals clubbed in the general budget, the Railways would continue to maintain its distinct entity status as a departmentally-run commercial undertaking as at present. As regards removing the Plan and non-Plan classification of accounts, it has already been announced by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget for 2016-17.

Source: Mint September 20, 2016 16:22 UTC