The Centre for Budget and Policy Studies was formed in January 1998. It is an independent, non partisan, not for profits society based in Bangalore and is registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, 1960. CBPS is also registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act with the Home Ministry in Delhi.

CBPS grew out a research programme in the Development Research Foundation which was a part of Technology Informatics Design Endeavour, a non-profit society in Bangalore. When the projects in DRF became large, it was decided that CBPS would spin off as a separate society.

The mission of the Society is to contribute through research to understanding and implementing a process of sustainable and equitable development in India, with a focus on the local level. In this process, the budget process is a very useful tool to work with. To this end, the broad aims and objectives of the Society are:

• To empower people through improved understanding of budgets at all levels to contribute to the policies and programmes of Government, especially relating to the Directive Principles of State Policy.
• To facilitate the achievement of the objectives of the Constitution in development by working on budgets of the urban and rural bodies set up after the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments.
• To examine the impacts of budget policy taken together with other government policies on citizens.
• To create awareness and sensitise the community and the State and its functionaries in particular about citizen rights and other special problems as they manifest themselves in budgets and other documents, and to seek to redress these through lawful means.
• To develop and support networks to promote and pursue the aims and objectives of the Society, and learn from experiences of other similar institutions in the world.