Rail and General Budget gets merged, end of colonial rule
Railway Budget gets scrapped
Rail and General Budget gets merged, end of colonial rule:- Finally the Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod to merge the railway budget with the general budget. From next year, the Railway Budget would be not presented separately. It has also approved advancement of presenting budget by a month. With this the government has put an end to the British Era. Notably presenting budget in the end February was in practice since 1924.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made this announcement after the cabinet meeting. He said “Rail and General Budget will be merged from now and there will be only one budget. However, functional autonomy of Railways will not change and it will continue in the similar way.”
Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley
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Decision is a break from colonial rule
Advancement of presenting budgets is a break from colonial rule as this was in practice from last 92 years. This step has been taken by government to boost infrastructure spending. All the proposals were cleared in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Benefits of Advancement of Budget
It will help to get all the legislative approvals for annual spending and tax proposals before the beginning of new financial year. With this the Budget Economic Survey would also be advanced.
Cabinet gave nod to advancement
As both the budgets have got merged now there will be no requirement of separate Appropriation Bills. Last but not the least this will help the ministries to plan better and to execute all their schemes better. The main motive behind this is to get all the proposals implemented by April 1 itself, because currently the approval takes a lot of time and which results delay in implementation.
Important facts
Even after the merger of railway budget, the autonomy of Railway department would not change and it will remain the same. The most important fact is that now Railways will not pay any dividend to the central government, which it had to pay earlier.
