Timed out by the Budget

The delay in the Budget session owing to polls in five states has given finance ministry officials more time to prepare the annual document. The officials, however, are not very excited about that opportunity. Some of them say they would have preferred to have had it at the end of February and an extra window of over two weeks hardly helps because they had started the budgeting process a little earlier this time. The Budget is to be presented on March 16, which means the entire process, including notifying Budget announcements, will be delayed, a time-line that will affect the year-end holiday plans some officials had drawn up with their families.