bahi khata' Nirmala Sitharaman to present Budget 2025 again through a tab instead of traditional 'bahi khata'

This is going to be Sitharaman's eighth consecutive Budget. This will take Sitharaman closer to the record of 10 budgets that were presented by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai over different time periods.

Desai has presented a total of 6 budgets during his tenure as finance minister in 1959-1964, and 4 budgets between 1967-1969.

Former finance ministers P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee presented nine and eight budgets, respectively, under different prime ministers.

Sitharaman, however, will continue to hold the record of presenting the most budget in one trot - eight straight budgets under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

She was in 2019 appointed as India's first full-time woman finance minister when Prime Minister Modi won a decisive second term.

The Budget presentation date was in 2017 changed to the 1st of February to allow the government to complete the Parliamentary approval process by March-end and allow implementation of the Budget from the start of the fiscal on April 1.

Presenting the Budget on February 29 meant that the implementation could not start before May/June after accounting for 2-3 months of the parliamentary approval process.

Some Interesting Facts Related To Budget

Shortest Speech - Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel's interim Budget speech in 1977 is so far the shortest at just 800 words.

Timing - The Budget was traditionally presented on the last day of February at 5 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 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 Sinha in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government presented the budget at 11 am.

Since then budgets are presented at 11 am.

The Budget presentation date was in 2017 changed to the 1st of February to allow the government to complete the Parliamentary approval process by March-end and allow implementation of the Budget from the start of the fiscal on April 1.

Presenting the Budget on February 29 meant that the implementation could not start before May/June after accounting for 2-3 months of the parliamentary approval process.

With PTI inputs