Pre-budget meetings scrapped this year due to COVID-19

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

The Finance Ministry has scrapped the long-standing tradition of pre-budget meeting with various sectoral groups for this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These meetings usually involve a large number of people and even the biggest conference rooms in North Block, which houses the ministry, may not ensure social distancing.

Moreover, there are unlikely to be any meeting through video-conferences as well.

Instead, the Finance Ministry has mailed participants like industry bodies, economists and sectoral representatives to reply with their feedback.

Every year, in December, the Finance Minister hosts economists, industry bodies, financial sector, social sector, agriculture and labour representatives for pre-budget consultations.

These multiple meetings go on for a few hours and the attending representatives present their budget wish-list to the Finance Minister.

The secretaries heading the five departments of the Finance Ministry, officials from the budget division, and the Chief Economic Advisor also attend these meetings.

“We have been sent a mail, and told to reply with our feedback and what we would like to see the budget focus on,” said an economist who has attended past pre-budget meetings and was slated to attend this time around as well.

"Of course, if on an individual basis one wants to meet the Minister and her officials, one can seek an appointment," the person said.

Another economist and a representative of a national industry association also confirmed to Moneycontrol that they had received mails from the Finance Ministry seeking their ideas for the budget.

As per the practice established since late Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s time, the Finance Ministry has also sought feedback from the general public on social media.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to table the Union Budget 2021-22 on February 1. This is perhaps the most challenging budget that the Narendra Modi administration has had to prepare, as the government prepares a booster shot to revive the economy and also ensure that Covid vaccinations are distributed across the country.

After losing nearly a quarter of its value in April-June 2020 quarter, India’s real GDP narrowed its contraction to 7.5 per cent in July-September, data released last week shows.

On December 4, the Reserve Bank of India improved its GDP forecast for the full year 2020-21. It now forecasts the economy to contract by 7.5 percent for the year, compared with 9.5 percent earlier.