Guwahati: The reports of a full budget to be presented by the central government have been denied by the government now as it gets ready to release an Interim Budget on February 1. This has been indicated by the provisional calendar released by the Lok Sabha which loudly announces that for the time being it is going to be an Interim Budget.
Clearing the cloud of confusion regarding the budget, a finance ministry spokesperson said, “This Budget will be called Interim Budget 2019-20 and, therefore, don't have any confusion on this issue.”
Notably, this will be the last budget of the present Narendra Modi government before the Lok Sabha polls and as very specifically said by the finance ministry, it will be called ‘Interim Budget 2019-20’.
The Finance ministry spokesperson made this statement, a day after when in a workshop the Press Information Bureau officers were being told that the ensuing budget will be titled ‘General Budget 2019-20’. The same information was also being with some of the journalists and when the news spread, it created further confusions among all.
According to the suppositions among markets and policy watchers, the 2019-20 Budget is nothing but just a vote-on-account of the government as it heads into Lok Sabha elections 2019.
As per the convention, Interim Budgets do not contain any direct tax proposals that might require an amendment to the Income Tax Act. Generally, the Finance Bills accompanying the Interim Budget use to be short and contains 7-10 page documents only. Such interim budgets are meant to extend the existing budgetary provisions from April 30 to July 31 and by this time, the new or returning government gets enough time to prepare and present a full Budget for the financial year.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, speaking in a video-conference from New York, said, “Ordinarily there should be no reason why we should move away from that convention, but then the larger interests of the economy always dictate what should be in the Interim Budget… Without getting into specifics, some of those challenges really can’t afford to wait. There would be a necessity to address some of them. We intend to work within the parameters of the conventions that exist.”