Budget 2023: Budget basics explained

Union Budget 2023: As the Budget 2023 approaches, Editorji breaks down the what, why and when of the budget presentation.

What is a union budget?
The union budget is the annual financial statement prepared by the Finance Ministry that includes budgeted receipts and expenditures of the government for a fiscal year. A fiscal year starts from April 1 and ends on March 31.

Details of the event
The budget will be presented at 11 AM on February 1 by the finance minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman. The budget used to be presented on the last day of February before 2016 after which the date was changed to February 1st.

The budget speech
The presentation could last anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes. The longest presentation by the finance minister was of two hours and 40 minutes in 2020 budget speech.

The two parts of the budget
Broadly there are two parts of the budget. The first one includes the prevailing economic condition and the budgeted expenditure of the government for the upcoming financial year. The second part of the speech focusses on the govt's taxation proposals.