Finance Ministry kick-starts Budget making exercise

New Delhi: The finance ministry on Friday kicked off the exercise to prepare the annual Budget for 2021-22 amid the urgency to push economic growth hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The upcoming Budget will be crucial for the country as it will have to deal with impact of pandemic which has affected all segments of the economy, including revenue collection, disinvestment, expenditure, exports and food prices.

The economy is projected to contract by a massive 10.3 per cent this year, according to an IMF forecast. Even the Reserve Bank of India expects the economy to shrink by 9.5 per cent in the current financial year. As per the finance ministry schedule, the nearly one-month long exercise to finalise the Revised Estimate (RE) for 2020-21 and Budget Estimate (BE) for 2021-22 began on Friday. The meetings will conclude on November 12.

Officials of the Department of Financial Services, as well as ministries of MSMEs, housing, steel and power were among those who participated in the first meeting, as per the schedule.

"This year, however, keeping in view the COVID-19 situation and the need to maintain social distancing, the number of participants for the pre-budget meetings may be restricted to a maximum of 5 officers (for each meeting) from a Ministry/Department, not below the rank of Director/DS," the Budget Division of the finance ministry had said in a notice.

It will be the third Budget of the Modi 2.0 government and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Budget 2021-22 is likely to be presented on February 1.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government scrapped the colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February.