M Rafi Ahmed
As the country is heading towards General Elections in the next few months or so, the Interim Budget presented today by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman assumes significance. In this backdrop, let’s have a quick rewind of some interesting facts about ‘Interim Budget’. Not many are aware that the first interim budget of India was presented in 1860 by James Wilson, a Scottish economist, who worked with the East India Company. However, the budget which is presented now has been transformed with the contribution of eminent economists like Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.
It is interesting to infer that India’s first interim budget was presented by first Finance Minister RK Shanmukham Chetty in 1947 which was presented for seven-and-a-half months from Aug 15,1947 to March 31,1948 immediately after India’s independence to address the country’s economic hardship including food grain shortage, elevated imports, and skyrocketing inflation.
Notably, fourteen interim budgets were presented till now since India’s independence. And the last one was presented by former Finance Minister Piyush Goyal in February 2019. Goyal’s speech for the presentation of the interim budget consisted of 8,119 words and was the second-longest interim budget speech after the one presented by RK Shanmukham Chetty in 1947.
Flipping through the pages of Budget history revealed that two decades ago, interim budgets were limited to routine announcements. However, since 2004-05, interim budgets consisted of announcements related to tax cuts, extension of schemes, and subsidies. Jaswant Singh as Finance Minister introduced a merger of 50% dearness allowance of central government employees with basic pay, reduction in custom duty, and extension of Antyodaya Anna Yojana in the interim budget presented in 2004-05.
Noteworthy to mention that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is credited with presentation of the longest budget speech in terms of duration in India’s history. Her budget speech in 2020 was two hours and 42 minutes long. That year on February 1, 2020, her speech began at 11 am and continued till 1:40 pm.
As she was unable to complete the lengthy budget speech script as she felt developed uneasiness. Later, the speech was completed by Om Birla.
However, her speech still fell short of the one given by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 1991 in terms of word count. Former PM Manmohan Singh’s speech as Finance Minister had 18,650 words.
Unusually, the presentation of budget transformed from briefcase to tablet making it paperless. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spearheaded the transformative journey of the union budget from briefcase to tablet. In 2019, she gave a desi avatar to the budget by replacing the old ‘budget briefcase’ with a ‘Bahi khata’. During her first Budget, FM carried a red-colored ‘Bahi khata’ in 2019 instead of a briefcase. Later, the Covid pandemic served as an opportunity to opt for a paperless budget. The Union Budget of 2021-22 was presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on a digital tablet.
Surprisingly, the most number of budgets were presented by India’s former Prime Minister Morarji Desai wherein he presented the budget ten times. However, after the presentation of the upcoming interim budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will become the minister to present the maximum number of Union Budgets consecutively.
It is learnt that despite the high security maintained during the printing of the Union Budget, it was leaked in 1950 when then Finance Minister John Mathai was set to present the Union Budget in the parliament. After the leak, the printing of the Budget was shifted from Rashtrapati Bhawan to Minto Road. After 1980, the budget printing process shifted to the North Block basement.
Till 1955, the Union Budget was printed exclusively in English. However, after 1955-56, the Annual Financial document was presented in both English and Hindi. The tradition was initiated by then Finance Minister C D Deshmukh. Just a week before the presentation of the Union Budget, the Finance Ministry hosts a ‘Halwa ceremony’. The ceremony marks the beginning of the process of printing the Union Budget which took place in the basement of the Finance Ministry within Central Delhi. After the event, all the ministry staff work in isolation for the 9-10 days to prevent the secrecy of the process. They are not in contact with the outer world and can be only contacted by the family in case of any emergency. That’s how the secrecy is maintained.
