Get ready for India’s first PaperLess Budget

          On February 1 2017, Shri Arun Jaitely, India’s present Finance Minister will present the Indian Budget.

Definition of 'Union Budget'

Definition: According to Article 112 of the Indian Constitution, the Union Budget of a year, also referred to as the annual financial statement, is a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the government for that particular year.

Description: Union Budget keeps the account of the government's finances for the fiscal year that runs from 1st April to 31st March. Union Budget is classified into Revenue Budget and Capital Budget.

Revenue budget includes the government's revenue receipts and expenditure. There are two kinds of revenue receipts - tax and non-tax revenue. Revenue expenditure is the expenditure incurred on day to day functioning of the government and on various services offered to citizens. If revenue expenditure exceeds revenue receipts, the government incurs a revenue deficit.

Capital Budget includes capital receipts and payments of the government. Loans from public, foreign governments and RBI form a major part of the government's capital receipts. Capital expenditure is the expenditure on development of machinery, equipment, building, health facilities, education etc. Fiscal deficit is incurred when the government's total expenditure exceeds its total revenue.

          This Budget has many firsts associated with it, one of the most first’s is that the finance ministry is going paperless for the Budget. There will be no hard copies of the circulars.

All the important documents will be submitted through Union Budget Information System (UBIS).

UBIS has been developed by National Informatics System.

UBIS facilitates capturing of Statement of Budget Estimates(RE and BE) from demands of various Ministires/Departments, compilation and generation of printable version of various Budget Documents viz. Expenditure Budget Volume-I and Volume-II, Demands for Grants, Receipt Budget, Annual Financial Statement and Budget at a Glance.

          Due to security issues, UBIS is disconnected from Internet during the Budget period. Hence, apart from online module for data entry, off line module is also available which use predefined excel and access templates to capture the data and transfer to the database.

UBIS also facilitates reconciliation of actual expenditure data obtained from CGA with the actual expenditure in Detailed Demands for Grants. Implementation of the system has brought about a significant change from the way budget processing was carried earlier.

In the updated version of UBIS, Government Departments can directly enter/upload the data and generate reports in respect of demands dealt by them without having to depend on technical manpower. Capturing of master information in respect of Ministry/Department name, demand name, development head name, major head code description etc. has enabled uniformity across various documents without having to check this information individually in each document. This has enabled the officers/staff to avoid repetitive tasks and thus led to improvement in their efficiency.

One of the most useful features of UBIS is its capability to generate documents in English and Hindi. This saves considerable time of the respective department in preparing bilingual documents.

So sit back and experience the Joy of India’s first paperless budget