The Upper House looks set to conduct all three readings of the 3.75-trillion-baht budget bill for the 2025 fiscal year on Monday, with the bill's approval potentially due the same day, Deputy Senate Speaker Gen Kriangkrai Srirak said on Friday.
The expedition of the bill is possible because the Senate had previously set up a special committee to begin deliberating the draft law while it was being scrutinised in the Lower House this week from Tuesday to Thursday, he said.
With the help of this parallel deliberation, Gen Kriangkrai said he strongly believes the Senate's planned one-day deliberation of the bill will run smoothly and be wrapped up in a timely manner.
The House of Representatives passed the budget bill late on Thursday, which will allow newly appointed Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to lift state spending to accelerate a nascent economic recovery.
The budget bill, which proposes a 4.2% increase in government spending from the revised outlay for the 2025 fiscal year, starting Oct 1, was backed by 309 lawmakers in its third and final reading in the 500-member House of Representatives on Thursday. A total of 155 lawmakers voted against the bill at the end of a three-day debate.
If it wins approval from the Senate, the new budget law will take effect once a notice has been published in the Royal Gazette.
The budget outlay includes a provision to partly fund the coalition government's controversial cash handout to jumpstart consumption and manufacturing.
Ms Paetongtarn faces the challenge of reviving Southeast Asia's second-largest economy -- now stifled by a near-record level of household debt, sluggish exports and a manufacturing sector weakened by cheap imports, mainly from China.
The new premier has pledged to take steps to lift the economy out of "crisis" mode and she is due to unveil the details of her government's policies in parliament next week.
Her government is also set to rework the so-called "digital wallet" programme that has promised 10,000 baht each to almost all adult Thais.
The programme aims to turbocharge economic growth to 5%, more than double the average sub-2% growth rate for nearly a decade under military-backed rule.
Senator Premsak Piayura, in his capacity as deputy chairman of the Senate's special committee vetting the budget bill, said on Friday the committee had already finished its study of the bill and forward the results to the Secretariat of the Senate along with a request to call a meeting of the Senate on Monday to deliberate all three readings.