
On Monday, October 10, the central government will begin the process of developing its annual budget for the fiscal year 2023–2024, which is anticipated to examine steps to spur growth in the face of a bleak outlook, according to the news agency PTI.
The conference will start with consultations with several ministries and departments over the RE for the current fiscal year’s expenditures and the funding requirement for 2023–2024.
RE discussions would be held on Monday with the ministries of youth affairs and sports, labour and employment, information and broadcasting, statistics and programme implementation, and environment, forests, and climate change.
According to PTI sources, the Finance Secretary and Expenditure Secretary would preside over the majority of these meetings to finalise RE for the current fiscal year (2022-23) and the Budget Estimate for 2023-24.
According to a notification from the budget division of the finance ministry, the month-long discussions would come to an end on November 10 after consultations with the Ministry of Cooperation, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Ministry of Railways, and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
After the pre-Budget meetings, the budget estimates for 2023–24 will be provisionally approved.
All of these meetings would take place in the midst of numerous organisations, such as the Reserve Bank and the World Bank, cutting their growth projections for India to 7% and 6.5%, respectively.
It will be the final comprehensive budget before the upcoming general elections in April or May 2024 and the fifth budget for the Narendra Modi 2.0 government and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
According to PTI, the first half of Parliament’s budget session, which typically starts in the final week of January each year, will likely include the presentation of the Budget 2023–24 on February 1.
The budget deficit was estimated to be 6.4% of GDP in the Budget 2022–23, although growth rates of 7–7.5% in real terms were forecast (GDP).