Parliamentary panel to examine merger of budgets New Delhi, September 25 (PTI): With the Cabinet’s approving the merger of Railway Budget with General Budget, the parliamentary panel on finance has decided to ‘examine’ the move along with its “ramifications thereof”. Ending a 92-year-old practice, the Cabinet had decided to scrap a separate budget for railways and merge it with General Budget, presentation of which would be advanced to spur spending and boost the economy. The Committee on Finance has selected the “Budgetary Reforms including Merger of Railways Budget with General Budget -- Ramifications thereof,” according to the Lok Sabha bulletin dated September 22. As part of a major overhaul of the budget process, the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also decided to do away with classifications of expenditure into Plan and Non-Plan, making the exercise simpler. To facilitate early presentation of the Budget, the finance ministry had proposed that the Budget Session of Parliament be convened sometime before January 25, a month ahead of the current practice. The parliamentary panel headed by the Congress MP M Veerappa Moily, will review the all budgetary reforms. The panel move comes after the Congress termed the decision to merge the two budgets as “cosmetic, superficial and non-substantive changes”. GDP growth to top 8 pc on rains, reforms: Panagariya New Delhi, September 25 (PTI): A good monsoon, reforms and timely decision making at the Centre will definitely push India’s growth beyond the 8 per cent mark in subsequent quarters of this fiscal, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya has said. “I am confident that it (GDP number) will be over 8 per cent in subsequent quarters (this fiscal),” Panagariya said. Elaborating, he said, “This will happen because there will be impact of reforms also (besides a good monsoon). We still have not seen (the impact of reforms). There were serious governance issues earlier. Projects were stuck. The decisions were not taken at the Centre.” India’s growth rate slipped to a 6-quarter low of 7.1 per cent in April-June due to subdued performance of mining, construction and farm sectors. The figure was 7.9 per cent in January-March. Last year, Indian economy expanded by 7.5 per cent in the April-June quarter. Admitting that the 7.1 per cent is a slight dampener in the first quarter, he said, “It was slightly lower than my expectations. First quarter data did not have any impact of the good monsoon this year.” India’s foodgrain output is estimated to rise by 9 per cent to an all-time high of 135.03 million tonnes in the kharif season (summer sown) of 2016-17 on record output of rice and pulses following bountiful rains.