The Constitution refers to the budget as the ‘annual financial statement’. In other words, the term ‘budget’ has nowhere been used in the Constitution. It is the popular name for the ‘annual
financial statement’ that has been dealt with in Article 112 of the Constitution.
The budget is a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India in a financial year, which begins on 1 April and ends on 31 March of the following year.
In addition to the estimates of receipts and expenditure, the budget contains certain other elements. Overall, the budget contains the following:
- Estimates of revenue and capital receipts;
- Ways and means to raise the revenue;
- Estimates of expenditure;
- Details of the actual receipts and expenditure of the closing financial year and the reasons for any deficit or surplus in that year; and
- Economic and financial policy of the coming year, that is, taxation proposals, prospects of revenue, spending programme and introduction of new schemes/projects.
Till 2017, the Government of India had two budgets, namely, the Railway Budget and the General Budget. While the former consisted of the estimates of receipts and expenditures of only the Ministry of Railways, the latter consisted of the estimates of receipts and expenditure of all the ministries of the Government of India (except the railways).
In 2017, the Central Government merged the railway budget into the general budget. Hence, there is now only one budget for the Government of India i.e., Union Budget.
