Budget - What is a Budget ?

A budget is a a financial plan of a person, organization or a country. It can either be a balanced or unbalanced estimates of revenues to and expenditures for a stated future period of time.

A government budget has an economic, political and technical basis. Unlike a pure economic budget, government budgets tend to satisfy the varied interests of the representatives without completely focussing on allocation of scare resources for best use. The ability to forecast the likely economic turns and the inflows and outflows is the technical component of this budget.

American budget is prepared by the office of management and budget and is then debated by congress before its passed in its final form

English budgets are prepared by the chancellor of exchequer and is then passed by the parliament

Indian government budget is created by many parties including the Planning Commission, Financial advisors of the individual ministries etc. Once all numbers are collated, Finance minister and his team focus on the cutting the deficit per the FRBM act and finalize the annual budget. Finance minister then presents the budget to the parliament and this is referred to as the budget speech in India.