A Budgeted History

India’s Union Budget Trivia – Snippets on interesting facts and milestones thus far

A Budgeted History –

•    The Union Budget of India is referred to as the annual Financial Statement in Article 112 of the Constitution of India and is the annual budget of the Republic of India

•    It is to be presented each year on the last working day of February by the Finance Minister of India in Parliament and has to be passed by the House before it can come into effect on April 1, the start of India's financial year

•    Morarji Desai holds the record of being the only finance minister to present the Union budget on his birthday - February 29 in 1964 and 1968. He is also the only person to have presented annual and interim budgets whilst being both the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India

•    Rajiv Gandhi presented the budget for 1987-89 and in the process became the third only Prime Minister to present a budget after his mother and grandfather

•    K.C. Neogy  and H.N. Bahuguna, both erstwhile Finance Ministers, held office for such short durations in between two budget days that they had no occasion to present a budget

•    Jawarharlal Nehru took charge of the Finance portfolio and presented the budget for 1958-59, given the last minute resignation of the then Finance Minster

•    The shortest ever interim budget speech was just 800 words and delivered by H. M. Patel in 1977

•    Until the year 2000, the Union Budget was announced at 5 pm on the last working day of the month of February, following a colonial practice of being simultaneously presented around noon in London and in India in the evening. Also since all budgets seemed to simply raise taxes, a presentation in the evening gave producers and tax collecting agencies enough time to work out change in prices

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