'Made in India' tablet replaces 'bahi-khata' as Budget 2022 goes paperless for 2nd consecutive year

New Delhi, Feb 01: As finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman posed with the ministry officials in front of the office of the finance ministry on Tuesday ahead of the Budget 2022 presentation in Parliament, she held the tab in her hand, wrapped in a red cover which looks like bahi khata.

With the move aimed at a paperless Budget, 'bahi khata' (a ledger wrapped in a red cloth) has been completely removed -- a move to reinforce Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Digital India' mission.

In 1947, India's first Finance Minister R. K. Shanmukham Chetty carried a leather portfolio to present the first Budget.

The Union Budget will be paperless this year too, in an attempt to go green. Going paperless will enable the government to cut down on the printing of documents for the presentation of tax proposals and financial statements. Barring a handful of physical copies, the Budget 2022 documents will be available mostly digitally.

The government had launched the 'Union Budget Mobile App' in 2021 so that the Members of Parliament (MPs) and the general public could access the documents with just a few clicks.

Sitharaman, who will present the Budget, is expected to lift and give an impetus to the Indian economy that has been battered due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown.

Sitharaman will present the Budget at 11 a.m. in the Lok Sabha. This would be Sitharaman's fourth Budget under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi 2.0.