Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to present the Union Budget on Saturday, February 1, 2025. Now the railway budget is presented with the general budget after it got approval from the cabinet in 2016.
Hence from the year 2017, the Railway Budget was presented with the Union Budget as a merger. This big move ended the 92-year-old tradition of presenting a separate Railway Budget. Now the entire Railway Budget comes under the Union Budget.
This was for the first time that the Railway Budget was merged with the Union Budget or the General Budget. Now also the same practice continuous. And on this Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be presenting Union Budget. She will be presenting 8th Budget as a Finance Minister of India.
According to media reports, A NITI Aayog commission recommended to discontinue the separate presentation of General Budget and Railway Budget. The then Railway Minister, Suresh Prabhu acted on the recommendation and wrote a letter to late Arun Jaitley to merge the Railway and General Budget.
The proposal made by Suresh Prabhu was later raised by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha in 2016. After this a committee was created to plan the merger of two Budgets. The first Railway Budget was presented in 1924.
As quoted by News18, the then Finance Minister, Late Arun Jaitley has stated that, “We are merging the Union Budget with the Railway Budget. There will be only one budget. The functional autonomy of the Railway will be maintained.”
Here Are Several Reasons For The Merger:
- It was done to make the process more efficient and solve the complexities.
- This was done to enhance the financial stability of Indian Railways.
- This merger aims to provide better planning and investment.
- This increases the transparency
- This enhance the level of coordination between Railways and other medium.
