Preparing for the sixth Budget

Will Mr Jaitley introduce a fourth departure from past practices by presenting a full Budget with the usual tax proposals and expenditure outlays for 2019-20?

North Block, headquarters of the Union finance ministry, has now got busy preparing for the Budget for the next financial year. Its recent preoccupation with why the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should not transfer more resources to the central exchequer, provide more loans to the small and medium sector enterprises, and relax the norms for recognising stressed assets of banks is now almost over.

The RBI board meeting on Monday indicated that truce has been declared, even as concessions are going to be made by both the central bank and the Union finance ministry on most of the contentious