Finance Minister To Present Union Budget 2012-13 on 16th March 2012

The date for the Union Budget 2012-13 are out and it seems like Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee may table the budget report on 16th March 2012. The budget session will start on 12th March with the Railway Budget to be presented first on 14th March. Preceding the Railway Budget, the govt. will table the Economy Survey 2011-12 data on 15th March. This survey is a document prepared by the Ministry of Finance which outlines the current state of the economy.

Finally the much awaited Union Budget 2012-13 would be presented on 16th March. Generally the budget is presented on the last working day of the month of February, but this time owing to elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) the budget dates have been postponed. The reason for the postponement can be attributed to the Election Commission’s Modal Code of Conduct, which prohibits the party in power from announcing any financial grants, projects or schemes of any kind which may have the influence the voters in favor of the party in power.

As the budget report is likely to address the above prohibited issues, the govt. has decided to postpone the date from last working day of Feb to 16th March 2012. In fact since the year 2004, this is the first instance where the govt. has had to postpone its budget to a later date.