Five Little-Known Facts About the Union Budget for 2024

 Five Little-Known Facts About the Union Budget for 2024

On February 1, 2024, just before the Lok Sabha elections, FM Sitharaman will deliver the Modi government's interim budget. A deeper look at a few lesser-known details about the Union Budget

The next interim budget for the fiscal year 2024–25, which is set to be unveiled on February 1, 2024, is significant since it is the last official budget presentation of the Modi administration's second term.

Nirmala Sitharaman, the minister of finance, will deliver her sixth budget in a row starting in 2019. This puts him in the exclusive club of Finance Ministers, which also includes well-known figures like Manmohan Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Morarji Desai, who have delivered at least five consecutive Union Budgets.

The first budget, which was presented on April 7, 1860, when the East India Company was in power, was given by Scottish politician and economist James Wilson. This is when the custom of presenting the budget in India originated. The first budget presented after independence was made on November 26, 1947, by RK Chetty, the Finance Minister at the time. There have been 75 yearly budgets for the nation since its independence, including 14 interim budgets and 4 special budgets.

(1) The history's longest and shortest speech

During the February 1, 2020, presentation of the Union Budget 2020–21, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who has delivered the Union Budget four times, set a record for the longest speech. She spoke for two hours and forty-two minutes, but she had to end her speech with two pages left because of time limits.

In 1977, Hirubhai Muljibhai Patel gave India's smallest budget speech—just 800 words. Patel, who held the position of Finance Minister during the Morarji Desai-led administration from 1977 to 1979, made a succinct presentation that was much shorter than the traditionally longer Union Budget addresses in the nation's history.

(2) Lengthiest speech measured in words

The longest budget speech in terms of words was delivered in 1991 by Manmohan Singh, the Finance Minister at the time, under the Narasimha Rao administration (18,650 words). Arun Jaitley, who delivered a budget speech of 18,604 words in 2018, is next on the list. Jaitley took an hour and forty-nine minutes to finish his lengthy speech during the session.

(3) PM's presentation of the budget

While the Finance Minister is usually in charge of delivering the Union Budget in India, there have been times when the Prime Minister has assumed this duty. The Prime Minister has presented the Budget under unusual circumstances, often at periods of great political or economic significance.

In 1958, Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister to do this. This occurred when Nehru was forced to submit the Union Budget when TT Krishnamachari, the former Finance Minister, resigned over his apparent participation in the Haridas Mundhra affair.

Later, in 1970, after the resignation of Finance Minister Morarji Desai over the nationalization of 14 Indian private banks without their consent, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi presented the budget. Additionally, when VP Singh resigned as Finance Minister in the 1987–1988 fiscal year, PM Rajiv Gandhi delivered the budget. These examples highlight the unique conditions under which prime ministers have taken on the responsibility of delivering the Union Budget.

(4) In India, who submitted the largest budget?

With ten budgets given in all, Morarji Desai holds the record for the most Finance Ministers to submit Union Budgets before Parliament.

From 1959 till 1963, Desai presented the yearly budget each year. He served as FM for a second time from 1967 to 1969. He also unveiled the interim budget for the 1962–1963 and 1967–1968 fiscal years.

Following Desai are P. Chidambaram, who has nine budgets, Pranab Mukherjee, who has eight, Yashwant Sinha, who has eight, and Manmohan Singh, the previous prime minister, who has six.

(5) Why did the Union Budget and the Railway Budget merge?

The Union Budget and the Railway Budget were combined in 2017, which was a big development. Additionally, since then, the budget has been delivered on February 1st in accordance with modifications made by Arun Jaitley, the finance minister at the time.

In the form of a white paper, NITI Aayog proposed ending the practice of a distinct railway budget and combining it with the Union Budget. The advice was presented to Suresh Prabhu, the Railway Minister at the time. In response, Prabhu urged the Union Budget and the Railways to be combined in a letter to then-FM Jaitley. This proposal's goals were to improve efficiency, simplify the budgeting process, and advance the general well-being of the Indian economy and the Railways.