Union Budget Speech: What Changes This Year and Why Part B Takes Centre Stage

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2026 on February 1, with the speech scheduled to begin at 11 am at Parliament House. The address will be broadcast live on national television channels, Sansad TV and multiple digital platforms, allowing viewers to follow the proceedings both on TV and online.

The Budget speech typically lasts between an hour and ninety minutes and offers the first detailed view of the government's spending plans, tax proposals and overall policy priorities for the coming year. Viewers are advised to tune in a little before 11 am, even though this year's presentation falls on a Sunday, to avoid missing the opening proceedings.

Traditionally, Part A of the Budget speech has focused on the state of the economy, fiscal numbers and major policy announcements, with Part B being relatively brief. This year, however, government sources indicate a departure from convention, with significantly greater emphasis expected on Part B.

The 2025 Budget marked another milestone for Nirmala Sitharaman, as she presented a Union Budget for the eighth consecutive year. Her 2025 speech ran for 1 hour and 14 minutes, continuing a steady trend towards more compact presentations and placing her close to the all-time record for the number of Union Budgets delivered by a single finance minister.

Across these eight years, Nirmala Sitharaman has watched her Budget speeches gradually shorten, moving away from the lengthy early addresses and towards more focused messaging, while still handling every Union Budget since 2019 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi without any break in responsibility.

Nirmala Sitharaman Budget milestones and historic Union Budget records

The current benchmark in Union Budget history belongs to former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who presented 10 Budgets in all, including six between 1959 and 1964 and another four from 1967 to 1969, a figure Nirmala Sitharaman now approaches after delivering eight consecutive Union Budgets.

Other veteran finance ministers also left strong records: P Chidambaram handled nine Budgets, while Pranab Mukherjee delivered eight across different governments, yet Nirmala Sitharaman’s sequence stands out because every Nirmala Sitharaman Budget has been placed before Parliament consecutively and under the same prime minister.

Nirmala Sitharaman Budget tenure and evolving role as Finance Minister

Nirmala Sitharaman took charge as India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister in 2019 and has remained in the post through Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third straight national win in 2024, giving the Nirmala Sitharaman Budget series an unusual degree of continuity and allowing consistent fiscal themes over multiple years.

Alongside the number of Budgets, Nirmala Sitharaman has also drawn attention for speech duration, holding the record for the longest Indian Budget speech, when the 2020 Nirmala Sitharaman Budget ran for 2 hours and 40 minutes and ended with two pages still unread due to time and health concerns.

Nirmala Sitharaman Budget speech lengths and changing presentation style

Since that marathon 2020 address, each major Nirmala Sitharaman Budget has tended to be shorter, with the 2024 interim Budget finished in around 60 minutes, reflecting a period focused on stability and policy continuity ahead of elections rather than large new schemes dominating the announcements.

The 2025 Nirmala Sitharaman Budget, at 1 hour and 14 minutes, continues this compact style while stressing fiscal consolidation, infrastructure push and green growth priorities, contrasting sharply with the longer early speeches yet still covering tax, spending and reform themes considered central to the government’s economic strategy.

The shift in approach becomes clearer when looking at a timeline of each Nirmala Sitharaman Budget speech, including duration and some headline measures announced during those presentations.

Nirmala Sitharaman Budget speeches among India’s longest presentations

When Budget speeches are ranked by how long they lasted, the Nirmala Sitharaman Budget record dominates the top of the list, ahead of several earlier finance ministers whose long presentations once defined the upper limit for Parliament’s Budget day proceedings.

By word count, however, the longest Indian Budget speech does not involve any Nirmala Sitharaman Budget, as Manmohan Singh’s 1991 speech reached 18,650 words and Arun Jaitley’s 2018 address followed closely at 18,604 words, while Nirmala Sitharaman’s achievement rests mainly on duration and the growing number of consecutive Union Budgets.