Finance Ministry To Kick Off Budget Exercise From October 9
“Financial advisers should ensure that the necessary details required in the appendices I to VII are properly entered...Before or latest by October 3, 2025. Hard copies of the data in the specified formats should be submitted for cross-verification”: Reports
NEW DELHI: The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the annual budget for 2026-27 from October 9 in the backdrop of geopolitical uncertainties and the steep US tariff of 50 per cent imposed on shipments from India. The budget for the next year is expected to address issues of boosting demand, job creation and putting the economy on a sustained 8 per cent-plus growth path.
The government, however, estimates that the Indian economy will grow in the range of 6.3-6.8 per cent during the current financial year. “Pre-budget meetings chaired by the secretary (expenditure) shall commence from October 9, 2025,” the budget circular (2026-27) of the department of economic affairs said on Tuesday.
“Financial advisers should ensure that the necessary details required in the appendices I to VII are properly entered...Before or latest by October 3, 2025. Hard copies of the data in the specified formats should be submitted for cross-verification,” the circular added.
The Budget Estimates for 2026-27 will be provisionally finalised after completion of pre-budget meetings, it said, adding that RE (Revised Estimate) meetings continue till around mid-November 2025. “All the ministries/departments should submit details of autonomous bodies/ implementing agencies, for which a dedicated corpus fund has been created. The reasons for their continuance and requirement of grant-in-aid support, and why the same should not be wound up, should be explained,” it said.
The Budget 2026-27 is likely to be presented on February 1 during the first half of the Parliament's Budget session. The budget for the current fiscal has projected a growth rate of 10.1 per cent in nominal terms, while the fiscal deficit is pegged at 4.4 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).