What is Public Account?

This fund accounts for flows for those transactions where the government is merely acting as a banker. For instance, provident funds, small savings and so on. These funds do not belong to the government.

They must be paid back at some point of time to their rightful owners. Because of this nature of the fund, expenditure from it is not required to be approved by Parliament.

When amounts are withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund with the approval of Parliament and kept in the Public Account for expenditure on specific objects, the actual expenditure on the specific object is again submitted for a vote of Parliament for withdrawal from the Public Account for incurring expenditure on the specific object.

The Constitution requires that the budget must distinguish between receipts and expenditure on revenue account from other expenditure.

All receipts in, say consolidated fund, are split into revenue budget (revenue account) and capital budget (capital account), which includes non-revenue receipts and expenditure.