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Wednesday, January 30, 2019

What is Interim Budget?

Interim budget explained
An interim budget is passed by an outgoing government on February 1. As customary, an interim budget is passed in two conditions: If the government of the day does not have time to present a full budget or if general elections are nearby. The full budget is then presented by the incoming government.
What's the procedure?
Simple. The Parliament approves the outgoing government’s budget and gives it spending rights till the end of the financial year i.e. March 31.
By approving the interim budget, the Parliament passes a vote on account to help the government meet administration expenses until a full budget is passed by the incoming government.
In years when general elections are held, the vote on account is approved for a period of four months. Elections are due in May 2019.
Difference between interim and full budget
Not much. An interim budget is exactly similar to a full budget but the vote on account is usually approved for a part of the financial year.
The interim budget estimates are presented for the full year but the incoming government can completely give the budget a makeover or partially change it after coming to power.
Interim budget regulations
There is no hard and fast rule which stops the outgoing government from framing any new major policies or benefits and there have been no major policies introduced all interim budgets held before elections years.
While it has been reported that the Narendra Modi-led NDA government is planning to increase the income tax exemption threshold, it remains to be seen whether the government changes the age-old tradition of not introducing major ticket reforms.

How Interim Budget different from vote-on-account?

 A vote-on-account only deals with the expenditure side of the government's budget, an Interim Budget is a complete set of accounts, including both expenditure and receipts, akin to a full budget. For instance, P. Chidambaram had presented the last interim budget of the UPA Government on February 17, 2014, while Arun Jaitley presented the full budget - and the Modi government's first one - five months later.

A vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period was taken in an election year ahead of a full-fledged budget presentation by the incoming government. That's because the Union government requires parliamentary approval to draw money from the Consolidated Fund of India to cover its expenditure as per the Constitution.

But the budget approved by the parliament sanctions government spending only till the end of a financial year, or March 31. Hence, the purpose of a vote-on-account or an interim budget is simply to allow the government of the day to continue running till India votes.

The upcoming 2019  budget will be the third interim one since 2000.



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