Agriculture, health to be focus of Union Budget 2021

The ministry of finance will kickstart its massive budgetary exercise from October 15.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants the focus of the 2021 Union Budget to be on agriculture and health.

Accordingly, this broad direction of the Modi government will be incorporated in next year's budget by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Even as the world is still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, the ministry of finance will kickstart its massive budgetary exercise from October 15.

Pre-Budget meetings will begin a day earlier, and the exercise will continue till the first week of November 2020.

A 160-page circular from the department of economic affairs (Budget division) will be issued early next week to all the 85 ministries and departments's financial advisors and to the secretaries in the Government of India. 

On Monday Sitharaman presided over the GST Council meeting, which decided to meet again next Monday. After that the finance ministry's focus for the next five months will be on the Union Budget preparations.

In all probability, the Union Budget will be presented on Monday, February 1, 2021. Modi has institutionalised that the Budget presentation will be on the first of February every year.

A core Union Budget team for 2021 has been formed with Finance Secretary Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey; Secretary, Economic Affairs Tarun Bajaj; and Expenditure Secretary Dr T V Somanathan.