Expenditure reforms saved Rs 25,592 crore: Nirmala Sitharaman

Bengaluru: The Narendra Modi government has improved the ‘sanctity and credibility’ of the union budget, and its various initiatives on the accounting side has saved Rs 25,592 crore over the past few years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday.

Some of the budget reforms she mentioned included advancing the date to February 1 from February 28 to enable passage of the Finance Bill before the start of the new financial year, merging rail budget with the general budget, replacing plan and non-plan classification of expenditure with revenue expenditure and capital expenditure, eliminating off-budget borrowing and increased transparency in the numbers.

“The last decade has witnessed a substantial improvement in the sanctity and credibility of the Union Budget, leaving past constraints and archaic practices behind,” Sitharaman said in a series of posts on X.

“Our budgets are characterised by fiscal prudence, transparency, and inclusiveness, ensuring investments in social development and infrastructure. We make judicious & efficient use of every rupee collected from our taxpayers and give them a transparent picture of public finances,” she said.

Sitharaman said that the new accounting mechanisms in the government’s Public Finance Management System were responsible for the savings. These mechanisms are the Treasury Single Account (TSA) for central government agencies and autonomous bodies, and the Single Nodal Agency (SNA) for distributing funds of centrally-sponsored schemes to states.

She said that TSA has covered over 3,000 implementing agencies and a total of around Rs 5 lakh crores of funds till FY24, and has resulted in savings of more than Rs. 15,000 crores to date.

“Now, the entire budgetary exercise, including the legislative process, is completed well before the start of the financial year. This has improved administrative efficiency and delivery of schemes as Ministries have the full budget available from the beginning of the financial year – 1 April,” Sitharaman said.

She added that state governments also benefit as earlier they used to present their respective budgets before the union government, but now have a better idea of how much money they will get from
the Centre.