The Union Budget will now be an early affair as the government has decided to present it on February 1. This announcement has come just a day before the start of the winter session of Parliament, to be held from November 16 to December 16, which is generally convened in the 3rd or 4th week of November.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is now likely to present the draft in the Parliament on February 1, while the Budget session is expected to start in January.

Prior to this, on 26 October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given clear signs that the Union Budget for the next financial year would be presented a month earlier.

In September, the government had decided to depart with the three British-era traditions such as the 92 year-old practice of separately presenting general and railway budgets by combining them into one, abolishing the difference between plan and non-plan expenditures, and shifting the presentation date in the Parliament from the last day of February to the first.

The decision to unify both railway and union budget was suggested by the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu which was endorsed by NITI Aayog, which also recommended doing away with the difference between planned and non-planned expenditure. The merging of both the budgets is also believed to have helped the Indian Railways in saving Rs.9,700 crore by way of dividend to the coffers. #casansaar