Indian Union Budget: Facts That Every Indian Should Know

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will create history on Tuesday when she presents her seventh straight Budget for the fiscal 2024-25. She will surpass the record of former prime minister Morarji Desai.

She was in appointed as India's first full-time woman finance minister in 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a decisive second term. Since then, she has presented six straight budgets, including an interim one in February this year.

As the countdown for the budget has begun, check out some interesting facts about the union budget:

• The Budget was first introduced in India on April 7, 1860, by Finance Member James Wilson of the Indian Council, transitioning from the East India Company to the British Crown.
• 1947 marked not only India's Independence but also the presentation of the first Union budget. Independent India's first budget was presented by RK Shanmukham Chetty on November 26, 1947, while the first budget for the Republic of India was presented by John Mathai on February 28, 1950.
• CD Deshmukh, the first Indian governor of the Reserve Bank of India and the finance minister, presented an interim budget for 1951-52.
• Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister to present the Budget, holding the Union finance minister portfolio in 1958-59.
• The President of India sets the date for the presentation of the budget. The Union Budget for India has two parts: Part A covers the general economic survey, and Part B outlines taxation policies.
• Employees responsible for printing the Budget papers are kept in complete isolation within the finance ministry for one week before the Budget is presented.
• Morarji Desai has presented the maximum number of budgets so far-10. He is also the only finance minister to have presented two budgets on his birthday, on February 29, in 1964 and 1968.
• Budget papers, initially prepared in English, started being prepared in Hindi from 1955-56.
• Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh introduced a 5 percent service tax in the 1994-95 budget, noting that the sector contributed 40 per cent of India's GDP.
• Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi presented the budget for 1987-88 after V. P. Singh left his government. He is credited with introducing corporate tax to the Indian diaspora.
• For the first time, two ministers from different parties presented the interim and final budgets in 1991-92. Yashwant Sinha (BJP) presented the interim budget, while Manmohan Singh presented the final budget.
• Yashwant Sinha is known for the maximum rollbacks in the Union Budget presented in 2002. His 1991 Budget was set against the backdrop of the forex crisis, while his 1999 Budget followed the Pokhran nuclear tests.
• Sinha presented the 2000 Budget during the Kargil war and the 2001 Budget following the devastating Gujarat earthquake.
• Following the colonial era, the Budget was presented at 5 pm on the last working day of February. While the British Parliament would pass their budget at noon, India followed suit in the evening until Sinha ended this practice. The Union Budget has been presented at 11 am since then.
• Nirmala Sitharaman holds the record for the longest budget speech, which lasted two hours and 40 minutes on February 1, 2020. She cut her speech short with two pages remaining.
• Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel's interim Budget speech in 1977 is the shortest so far, at just 800 words.