New Delhi

Union Budget 2024: Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to present the Union Budget 2024 in Parliament today. This will be the Modi 3.0 government’s maiden budget for the fiscal 2024-25. 

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With today’s budget, Sitharaman is set to create history by presenting the budget seven times in a row, surpassing the record of six budgets held by former prime minister Morarji Desai. 

Sitharaman, 64, was 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.

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The full Budget for the 2024-25 fiscal (April 2024 to March 2025) will be her seventh straight. She will better Desai’s record, who presented five consecutive full budgets and one interim budget from 1959 to 1964.

The 2020 budget presented by Sitharaman is also iconic for her speech in the parliament, which was the longest speech in history. Her speech lasted for two hours and 40 minutes. At the time, she cut short her speech with two pages remaining. 

Former finance minister Manmohan Singh set the record for the longest speech in terms of words. His budget speech consisted of 18,700 words in the 1991 budget presentation. 

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This year witnessed two budgets – an interim one in February and a full one this month. This is because an incumbent government cannot present a full Budget just before general elections.

The presentation on July 23 will be the first Budget by the BJP-led NDA government since its re-election last month. The budget will be presented at 11:00 am on Tuesday. 

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An interesting trivia related to the time of budget presentation is that the Budget was traditionally presented on the last day of February at 5:00 pm. The timing followed a colonial era practice when the announcements could be made in London and India at the same time. India is 4 hours and 30 minutes ahead of the British Summer Time, and so presenting the budget at 5:00 pm in India ensured that it was happening in the daytime in the United Kingdom.

The timing was changed in 1999 when the then finance minister Yashwant Singh in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government presented the budget at 11:00 am. Since then budgets are presented at 11:00 am.

(With inputs from agencies)