After the traditional Halwa ceremony, the printing of official documents of Budget 2019-20 has already begun. For the budget session 2019-20, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be tabling the budget in Lok Sabha on July 5, 2019.
This will be the first budget by the re-elected National Democratic Alliance government after the thumping win in the Lok Sabha Elections 2019.
As on the time of the interim budget, the Economic Survey of India was not published, it will be made public before the Budget 2019 presentation on July 4.
So before the budget 2019 is out, let’s check out 10 must-know facts about the history of union budget in India
India’s first budget- The first budget was presented on November 26, 1947, by that time Finance minister RK Sanmukham Chetty under the government of India’s first PM Jawahar Lal Nehru.
Interim Budget- When the first budget was tabled in the Lok Sabha, the term interim budget was introduced in India. Also, the first budget of India was an interim budget as the proposed date of the next budget presentation was less than 100 days away.
Woman Finance Minister- Indira Gandhi was the only woman finance minister who had presented union budget and now for the budget presentation of 2019-20, Nirmala Sitharaman will become the second woman finance minister to present the union budget.
Maximum Budget presentation- Former Finance Minister Morarji Desai presented the budget maximum times in the Lok Sabha and he also holds the record of the same. He has presented the budget 10 times including two interim budgets.
Halwa ceremony- Halwa Ceremony is a traditional way that marks the printing of budget documents. This ceremony is conducted among the finance ministry official. This year on June 2, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, minister of the state of Finance Anurag Thakur and senior officials observed the Halwa Ceremony mark the launch of printing of documents relating to union budget.
Change in budget presentation time- In 2001, Finance Minister at that time, Yashwant Sinha changed the time of budget presentation from 5 pm to 11 am under the government former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Railway Budget along with union budget- Railway budget was presented separately for about 92 years until 2016. Later in 2016, former finance minister Arun Jaitley merged the Railway Budget with the Union Budget. Following which in 2017, the Railway Budget was presented along with the Union Budget.
Change in Budget presentation day- Traditionally, the union budget of India has been tabled in Lok Sabha on the last working day of Feb up until 2016. From 2017, the union budget has been presented on Feb 1 following the changes brought up by former FM Arun Jaitley.
Longest & shortest budget speech- Former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh gave the longest Budget speech during his tenure as the Finance Minister in 1991 which was comprised of more than 18,000 words. While, on the other hand, the shortest Budget speech was delivered by former FM HM Patel in 1977 during the interim Budget presentation which constituted of about 800 words.
Budget language- Until 1955, budget documents were printed in the English language only. But 1955-56 onwards, the Budget documents are inked in English and Hindi both.
Who has presented the Union Budget the most number of times?
