Budget 2022: How long will Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's speech be this year?

New Delhi, Feb 01: Known for her long speeches, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to address her fouth budget so far. Sitharaman opted for rusty brown saree with off-white border detailing the spread throughout the sides.

She completed her look with a white shawl and white face mask. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Sitharaman ditched the traditional 'Bahi-Khata' and opted to carry the documents in a tablet which was wrapped in a red cover with the national emblem emblazoned on it. The Union Budget will be paperless this year too, in an attempt to go green.

Sitharaman holds the record for delivering the longest speech when she spoke for 2 hours and 42 minutes while presenting the Union Budget 2020-21 on February 1, 2020.

With two pages still remaining, she had to cut short her speech as she felt unwell. She asked the Speaker to consider the remaining part of the speech as read. During the course of this speech, she broke her own record of July 2019 - her maiden Budget - when she had spoken for 2 hours and 17 minutes.

At 18,650 words, Manmohan Singh delivered the longest Budget speech in terms of words in 1991 under the Narasimha Rao government. In 2018, then finance minister Arun Jaitley's speech with 18,604 words was the second longest in terms of word count. Jaitley spoke for 1 hour and 49 minutes.

Shortest budget speech

800 words was all that the then finance minister Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel delivered in 1977.