New Delhi: The Union Budget 2018 will be presented on February 1, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said on Friday. The budget session of the parliament will be conducted from January 29 to April 6, 2018.
The Phase 1 of the session will be held from January 29 to February 9 while the second phase will be from March 5 to April 6, Kumar said.
For the second time, the budget will be presented on 1 February. In 2016, the government advanced the budget presentation to the first day of February, departing from the practice of presenting it on the last working day of the month.
The Budget will be presented by the finance minister Arun Jaitley for the fiscal year 2018-19.
President Ramnath Kovind will address the joint sitting of the two Houses on January 29. Besides, the Economic Survey will also be tabled on January 29.
The fifth budget to be presented by Jaitley comes against the backdrop of interesting circumstances such as the roll-out of GST.
Also, this will be Jaitley's last full budget ahead of the general election in 2019.
Ahead of the budget, the government is likely to cut taxes on travel and tourism to boost economic growth and job creation.
According to Reuters, the government may give more incentives to the USD 210 billion sectors, which could add to a domestic tourism boom in the world’s second most populous nation.
Yesterday, as per the
Central Statistics Office (CSO) report, the economic growth is expected to slow to a four-year low of 6.5 percent in 2017-18, the lowest under the Modi-led government, mainly due to the poor performance of agriculture and manufacturing sectors.