First Cabinet meet under Modi 2.0: Union Budget to be presented on July 5

With the portfolio allocation job over and done within the morning, the first Cabinet meeting under Modi 2.0 dispensation was held today in New Delhi. The biggest announcement that came thereafter was that the PM Narendra Modi led NDA government will present the Union Budget on July 5. This was announced by Union Minister Prakash Javadekar. It was also announced by Javadekar that the Economic Survey will be released on 4th of July.

Notably, it was announced that the new Finance Minister will be Nirmala Sitharaman and she will be the one presenting the Budget. Former FM Arun Jaitley had written a letter to PM Modi and had asked that he not be considered for any post in the ministerial allocation process. PM Modi had thereafter visited Jaitley. On February 1, the interim budget was presented in the parliament by the caretaking the then Finance Minister Piyush Goyal which was hailed by not only the captains of commerce in India but also by the people from farming and salaried class who had got big booster dose from the interim budget 2019.

Among the other big announcements was that the Union Cabinet cleared pension scheme for traders. Three crore retail traders and shopkeepers will benefit from this decision.

Also, Cabinet cleared a new Central Sector Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Kisan Pension Yojana. It's a voluntary & contributory pension scheme for small and marginal farmers across the country. Notably, Centre will contribute to the pension fund in equal amount as contributed by farmers.

Also, since this was an election year, the government had presented an interim Union Budget in February. It was presented by acting Finance Minister Piyush Goyal as Jaitley was indisposed.

It has been customary that the government doesn't present the full budget ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. They present 'vote on account' and leave the full budget for the upcoming government. (With inputs from PTI)