Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram will begin pre-Budget consultations with various groups, including industrialists and economists, on Friday, an exercise dispensed with by his predecessor Jaswant Singh.

The pre-Budget consultations will begin with two meetings on June 4 with agriculturists and industrialists, official sources said here. They would be followed by two sessions with trade union leaders and economists on June 5.

Jaswant Singh had dispensed with such pre-Budget meetings and had instead opened a website to enable him to receive suggestions and memoranda from the concerned parties.

However, Singh's predecessor Yashwant Sinha had even included senior editors in these consultations.

Usually, the exercise is spread over a week, but has been curtailed to just two days now due to paucity of time.

The General Budget for 2004-05 is expected to be presented in the first week of July.

The National Democratic Alliance government had presented only an interim Budget in February in view of its decision to advance the Lok Sabha elections by a few months.