Piyush Goyal to present Interim Budget & not full Budget on 1 February

January 31: There were confusion in political circle that the government may deviate from the practice of presenting interim Budget and come up with full Budget ahead of the general elections. However, the Finance Ministry later clarified that the Budget will be called interim Budget 2019-20.

As per practice, a Vote-on-Account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in an election year and a full-fledged budget presented by the new government. The government recently assigned Piyush Goyal temporary additional charge of the Finance and Corporate Affairs ministries in the absence of Arun Jaitley, who is in the US for treatment.

An interim budget is presented by a government if it does not have the time for a full Budget or because the general elections are to be conducted shortly. So traditionally, in an election year, the outgoing government presents an interim budget. The task of framing the full budget is left to the incoming government.