It is India’s 92nd annual Budget. For Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman it is the sixth.
On Thursday, with a digital tablet in hand, Sitharaman headed to Parliament to present the interim budget. She posed outside the Ministry of Finance in New Delhi with her team before presenting her sixth straight budget. With this. she equals the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai.
The only two ministers who presented the Budget six times
Nirmala Sitharaman
With the presentation of the interim Budget on 1 February, Sitharaman surpasses the records of her predecessors like Dr Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had presented five budgets in a row.
After the 2019 general elections, Sitharaman was given charge of the finance portfolio in the newly re-elected Modi government. She became the second woman to have presented the Union Budget after Indira Gandhi, who had presented the Budget for the financial year 1970–71.
In her first year as a Finance Minister, Sitharaman did away with the traditional budget briefcase and instead went for a bahi-khata with the National Emblem to carry the speech and other documents.
Under her term, India has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic with an array of policy measures announced for the poor and continued its tag as the fastest-growing major economy and a “bright spot” in the world economy.
Sitharaman is expected to come up with some measures, especially to boost the rural sector as the agriculture sector growth in 2023-24 is estimated to decelerate to 1.8 per cent, from four per cent, in the preceding year.
Morarji Desai
On 22 March 1958, Morarji Desai assumed control of the finance ministry.
Having held the position under the governments of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, he went on to become the first non-Congress Prime Minister of an independent India.
Morarji Desai, as Finance Minister, had presented five annual Budgets and one interim Budget between 1959 and 1964.
The former PM also holds the record for presenting 10 Union Budgets, of which eight were annual and two were interim Budgets.
Desai, according to News9, raised significant amounts of money, cut inefficient expenditures, and brought accountability to government spending because he felt that for India to progress, the less fortunate and underprivileged segments of Indian society needed to have a decent standard of living.
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The only Prime Ministers who presented the Budget
Since 1947, several prime ministers have assumed responsibility for the finance portfolio and presented the Budget when finance ministers such as TT Krishnamachari and Morarji Desai submitted their resignations.
Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Indian prime minister to present the Union Budget.
In 1958–59, he assumed charge of the finance portfolio after Krishnamachari’s resignation following the Justice Chagla Commission’s conviction for corruption.
A few more years later, in 1970, after then-finance minister Morarji Desai resigned, Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, delivered the Union Budget as Prime Minister. She also became the first woman to unveil the Budget as India’s finance minister.
A small number of Indian prime ministers who presented the Annual Financial Statement under Article 112 of the Indian Constitution includes Morarji Desai, who was elected prime minister in 1977.
The succeeding prime minister and another Gandhi family member to present the Union Budget in 1987–1988 was Rajiv Gandhi. This came about following VP Singh’s resignation from his position as finance minister at the time.
Budget trivia
In the annals of Indian economic history, 1991 is most recognised for the reforms introduced by Dr Manmohan Singh, the country’s finance minister at the time, during Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao’s regime.
His budget speech, at about 18,600 words, is the longest to date. It was also the first that stressed the importance of foreign investments in India.
When Singh informed the House in 1991 that import duties had been reduced from almost 300 per cent to 50 per cent, the UPA government introduced the service tax for the first time.
India’s budget history is rich and deep. The first Budget was presented in 1860 by Scottish economist James Wilson, who also introduced income tax collection.
As of date, India has witnessed 77 regular Budgets and 14 interim Budgets. In total, 91 Union Budgets were placed in Parliament to date. This year will be the 92nd annual Budget.
Years later, Independent India’s first Budget was presented by the first Finance Minister RK Shanmukham Chetty on 26 November 1947 — just three months after India attained freedom from the British — for the seven-and-a-half month-period from 15 August 1947 to 31 March 1948. Interestingly, India’s first Budget was an interim Budget as it is this year.
With inputs from PTI
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Budget 2024: Meet the only two ministers who have presented the Budget six times
