With the government deciding to recommend to the President to prorogue both Houses of Parliament, the Budget session is expected to begin on July 5.
A formal decision in this regard is expected in the next few days.
The possibility of the session beginning in the first week of July rather than on June 28, as earlier planned, arose in view of Finance Minister P Chidambaram seeking a little more time to prepare the Budget for 2004-05.
Originally, Parliament was to be reconvened for the Budget Session without being prorogued. A gap of 21 days is a must is case Parliament is prorogued.
Government sources said that there would also be another vote-on-account built into the Budget as the Budget session is expected to last at least two months. The previous National democratic Alliance government had taken a vote-on-account till July 31.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad declined to specify the date of convening the session saying the Union Cabinet would decide this and it would be the prerogative of the President to convene the session.
He, however, made it clear that the government had no plans to give a go-bye to the parliamentary standing committees and the Budget Session would have a three-week recess to enable the Committees to go into the demands for grants of various ministries.
He said that the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairman were engaged in the exercise of constituting the committees whose number would remain 17.
