Skip to contentFacts about budget in India
- The Annual financial statement in the Article 112 of the Constitution of India is commonly known as the Union Budget of India. The President of India fixes the date of the Budget presentation by the finance minister.
- The Union Budget presented by the finance minister has a Finance Bill and an Appropriation Bill, both of which have to be passed by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha before it can be implemented from April 1.
- The first ever Union Budget of India was presented by the first Finance Minister of India RK Shanukham Chetty in 1947.
- Former Prime Minister of India and then Finance Minister Morarji Desai has presented the maximum number of Budgets – 10 – and an interim budget between 1959 and 1964.
- First woman Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi was also the only woman finance minister in the history of India. She presented a Budget while serving as the Prime Minister.
- Finance Minister of India in the BJP-led NDA Government Yashwant Sinha changed the practice, inherited from the British era, of announcing the Budget at 5 PM on the last working day of February to announcing the Budget at 11 AM of the last working day of February.
- For the first time in 92 years, the Rail Budget, usually presented separately, was merged with the Union Budget of 2017.
- The Budget presentation is preceded by a Halwa ceremony wherein a sweet dish is served to the officers and staff involved in the printing of the budget documents, following the traditional belief that having something sweet before any important task is auspicious.
- The printing of the Budget documents starts roughly a week before the date of the Budget presentation. The employees involved in the process are kept in complete isolation (quarantine) in the Finance Ministry during this time till the Budget is presented.
- The Budget papers used to be printed in the Rashtrapati Bhavan and was later shifted to Minto Road in New Delhi. Since 1980 though, the Budget papers have been printed in the North Block.
- The Union Budget of India for the year 1997-98, presented by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram was called the “Dream Budget” by media, possibly because the highlight of the budget was a road map for economic reforms in India including lowering income tax rates, removal of the surcharge on corporate taxes, and reduced corporate tax rates.
- The Budget of fiscal year 1973-74 is known as the “Black Budget” as the nation had a deficit of Rs 550 crore.
