Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday told the Lok Sabha that the Centre was considering changing the financial year from April-March to the calendar year, Reuters reported.
“The matter of changing the financial year is under consideration,” Jaitley said in a written reply to Parliament, though he did not say whether this step would force the Centre to advance the Union Budget to November-December 2017 from February 2018.
The committee set up by the government, which was headed by former Chief Economic Advisor Shankar Acharya, had looked into the possibility and submitted its report, Jaitley said.
On April 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pitched to synchronise the financial year with the calendar year. He had made the suggestion for a January-December financial year at Niti Aayog’s Governing Council meeting.
Days later, the Madhya Pradesh government had changed its Budget cycle to January-December from April-March. The Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Cabinet will present its next Budget in December 2017.
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