Explained: Parliamentary scrutiny of Union Budget 2021-22

The 2021-22 budget process concluded on Wednesday in Parliament with Rajya Sabha debating the Finance Bill, 2021 before returning it to Lok Sabha for enactment. The Finance Bill is introduced with the budget and consists of the government's financial proposals, primarily tax proposals, for the upcoming year. Before approving the Finance Bill, Parliament approved the 2021-22 union budget earlier this week as well as the budgets for Puducherry (for five months) and Jammu and Kashmir, as they are under the President’s rule in absence of their legislatures.

In addition, following announcements made in the budget speech, Parliament approved two Bills related to the finance sector in this session—one to increase the maximum foreign investment allowed in an Indian insurance company from 49 percent to 74 percent, and the other to set up a new development financial institution (DFI). This article discusses some of the financial business undertaken by Parliament in this session in detail.

In the 2021 budget session so far, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have spent 39 percent and 20 percent of their time, respectively, in discussing financial business. After the union budget was presented on February 1, 2021, both Houses had a general discussion on it, following which 24 Parliamentary Standing Committees scrutinised the budgets of all the Ministries of the central government. These Committees examine the amount allocated to various programmes and schemes under the Ministry and the trends of their utilisation in previous years.