BHUBANESWAR: In a complete departure from past practices, the system of budget presentation will be completely changed in 2016-17. Under the new system, the budget will be placed in the Assembly on March 15, the opening day of the budget session.
Appropriation Bill for two months - March and April - will be passed in the Assembly by March 31. The draft of the budget will then be sent to the Assembly Standing Committees which will submit their reports by April 25.
The budget for the remaining 10 months will be placed in the Assembly by the State Government basing on the recommendations of the standing committees. Central allocations for different sectors can also be ascertained from the Union Budget which would have been presented by then.
Decisions to this effect were taken at the all party meeting presided by Speaker Niranjan Pujari here on Monday. It was decided that the budget session will commence from March 15.
Announcing this after the meeting, Leader of the Opposition Narasingh Mishra said Appropriation Bill for two months will be placed by Finance Minister Pradip Amat before March 31. The budget will be placed basing on the recommendations of the Assembly Standing Committees, he said and added that if necessary, changes will be made in the budget.
Mishra said the Centre has authorised the states to fix priorities in their budgets. The meeting decided that the budget will be prepared on the lines of the Centre, he said and added that this will help the State allocate more funds for sectors which require expenditure.
The Finance Minister said the proposed format will help the Government allocate for different sectors strategically.
The idea behind such initiative is that the State Government will know allocation for different heads in the Central budget, he added.
Amat said during the existence of the Planning Commission, the State Government could know about allocations for different sectors and prepared its budget. But such a system is not possible under the Niti Aayog, he said and added, “We wait for the Central budget and draft the State budget after analysing it.”
The Minister said allocations for several schemes have been slashed and grants for eight projects stopped by the Centre. Besides, sharing pattern for 33 schemes have been changed drastically, he said and added that without analysing the Central budget, it will be difficult to prepare the State budget.