Image Source : PIXABAY Budget 2025: From shortest speech to paperless format | 10 interesting facts you should know.
Budget 2025: The budget session of the Parliament will commence today (January 31) with President Droupadi Murmu addressing the joint sitting of the two Houses at 11:00 am. Following this, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will table the Economic Survey ahead of the presentation of the Union Budget on Saturday (February 1). It would be tabled in Lok Sabha at 12 noon and 2:00 pm in Rajya Sabha.
The Economic Survey document, prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance and formulated under the supervision of the chief economic adviser, gives insights into the state of the economy and various indicators of 2024-25 (April-March) and some outlook for the next fiscal.
Take a look at 10 key facts about the Union Budget-
India’s 1st Budget was presented on April 7, 1860 by James Wilson, a Scottish economist and politician from the East India Company. After the independence of our nation, India’s first budget was presented by Finance Minister RK Shanmukham Chetty on November 26, 1947. It was an interim budget, covering a period of 7.5 months until March 31, 1948, to battle the nation’s economic headwinds.
The ‘shortest budget speech’ was delivered by Finance Minister Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel in 1977, consisting of only 800 words.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman holds the title for the ‘longest budget speech’ in 2020, which was a 2.42-hour (time duration) budget announcement on February 1, 2020. Additionally, ‘Halwa ceremony’ is a traditional ceremony in which every year, halwa, a traditional Indian dessert, is prepared and served to officials and staff members of the finance ministry who are involved in preparing the budget. It is one of the longest-standing traditions still followed by the government.
In 1950, under Finance Minister John Mathai, the Union Budget was leaked during the printing process. After the leak, the printing process was shifted from Rashtrapati Bhawan to Minto Road. Later, in 1980, it was shifted to the North Block basement.
The Railway Budget and the Union Budget were presented separately for 92 years until they were merged in 2017, ending the long-standing tradition.
The longest Budget speech in terms of ‘word count’ was delivered by Manmohan Singh in 1991, totalling 18,650 words during the Narasimha Rao government. Arun Jaitley’s speech in 2018 was the second longest, with 18,604 words, spoken over 1 hour and 49 minutes.
Until 1955, the Union Budget was presented exclusively in English. Later (1955-56), the Congress-led government decided to print the Budget papers in both Hindi and English and the annual financial document was presented. This tradition was initiated by Finance Minister CD Deshmukh.
Former Prime Minister Moraraji Desai holds the record for presenting the most budgets, delivering 10 budgets from 1962 to 1969. Other notable finance ministers, such as P Chidambaram, Pranab Mukherjee, Yashwant Sinha, and Manmohan Singh, have also presented multiple budgets.
The Union Budget was traditionally presented at 5:00 pm on the last working day of February until 1999. In that year, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha moved the presentation to 11:00 am. In 2017, Arun Jaitley changed the tradition, presenting the Budget on February 1 of every year.
In 2021, the Union Budget was presented in a ‘paperless format’ for the 1st time in India’s history, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Budget session
The first part of the Budget session will continue till February 13 and the two Houses will again meet on March 10 after recess with the session concluding on April 4.
