Union Cabinet gives approval to merging Railway budget with Union Budget

In what it can be seen as a step towards reforming the entire budgetary process, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the merger of the annual railway budget with Union budget.

"Rail budget and General budget will be amalgamated from now, there will only be one budget," said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while addressing a press conference.

"However its functional autonomy will continue to be maintained," he added.

The finance ministry had proposed that the budget be presented on February 1 as opposed to the current practice of the last working day of February, allowing the process to be completed before the new financial year begins.

If the budget is presented one month early, the process can be over by the time the fiscal year starts.

A joint committee was set up to finalise the modalities for the merger of Railway Budget with the General Budget.

This merger will help Railways save around Rs 10,000 crore annually as it will no longer have to pay dividend if the separate Rail Budget is scrapped.