Budget 2023: Did you know these interesting facts about Indian Budget?

With only few hours left for the Budget 2023, Editorji brings you some interesting facts about the Indian Budget.

BUDGET 2023: Facts

1st woman to present Budget
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first woman to deliver the Union Budget. She presented the budget in 1970. In 2019, Nirmala Sitharaman became the second woman and the first full-time female FM to present the Union Budget.

The Shortest Budget Speech
In 1977, former Finance Minister Hirubhai Muljibhai Patel presented the country's smallest budget. That was the interim budget. It was introduced on March 28, 1977. The budget speech that year consisted of 800 words.

The Longest Budget Speech
FM Nirmala Sitharaman holds the record for giving the longest budget speech. She spoke continuously for 2.42 hours while presenting the Union Budget 2020. With two pages not read, she had to cut her speech short as she felt unwell.

Finance Ministers with most budgets
Former Prime Minister Morarji Desai holds the record of presenting the highest number of budgets in history. During his tenure as FM, he presented 10 budgets, followed by P Chidambaram, who presented 9 budgets, Pranab Mukherjee 8, Yashwant Sinha 8 and Manmohan Singh 6 respectively.

Railway Budget & Union Budget

In 1924, the British began the practice of the Railway Budget in addition to the Union Budget. The Railway Budget and the Union Budget were presented separately from that point on until 2016. Former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley brought forward the idea of clubbing the Union Budget with the Railway Budget and delivered a combined Union Budget in 2017.

Style of preseting the budget
The budget was previously carried in a budget briefcase, but in 2019, FM Nirmala Sitharaman replaced it with a bahi khata that had the national emblem etched on it. In 2021, the budget became paperless, with the FM presenting and reading it out from a tablet.