KT NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI: The government has approached the opposition for the passage of the Union Budget in July, cutting short its thorough scrutiny by parliamentary standing committees of various ministries.
Under a practice adopted a few years ago, Parliament adjourns for three to four weeks after the first stage discussion of the budget to let small committees of MPs scrutinise the budget proposals indepth before they are returned to Parliament for passage.
The government's stand is that there is no time for such an elaborate exercise this time as the vote-on-account taken in February is only up to July 31 and as such the budget has to be passed before that date.
Since Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has already declared that he is preparing for presentation of the budget in the first week of July, it can be barely passed in another three weeks only by eliminating the standing committees' scrutiny and discuss it in Parliament itself, mainly in the Lok Sabha as the financial business does not require passage by the other House.
The government could have come up with another vote-on-account to have sufficient time for the main budget, but it does not want to delay unleashing of a slew of fiscal measures and reforms that can take care of the economic slowdown to some extent.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal had called on Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani to seek cooperation in scuttling the standing committee route of the budget.
His plea was that the Lok Sabha will be able to discuss the budget sufficiently before it is put to vote and hence the standing committees can be dispensed with as a one-time exception.
Mukherjee is already working in tandem with new Commerce and Industries Minister Anand Sharma to decide the budget concessions that can help the sectors still under recession.
While Sharma has repeatedly talked of a special package for exporters, the budget is expected to also provide sops to the manufacturing and labour-intensive sectors as also farmers, besides giving a further boost to a score of the rural programmes taken up by the previous UPA government.
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