Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2026-27 on Sunday, i.e. February 1, 2026. Ahead of that, Sitharaman today tabled the Economic Survey of India in Parliament. Sitharaman will be presenting a record ninth consecutive Union Budget, marking a significant milestone in India's parliamentary and economic history. Ahead of the Budget, here are some facts that you should know.
Halwa Ceremony: The ceremony is a customary ritual in which traditional dessert ‘halwa’ is prepared and served to officials and staff members of the finance ministry who are involved in the preparation of the budget. The ‘Halwa ceremony’ precedes the 'lock-in' of the officials involved in the preparation of the Union Budget.
The basement of North Block houses a printing press that was traditionally used to print budget documents for 40 years, from 1980 to 2020.
Thereafter, the budget went digital with bare minimum documents printed and the bulk distribution happening via mobile app or on the website. Going digital also meant that the lock-in period has become shorter, to just five days from the previous one, which lasted up to two weeks.
Union Budget Mobile App: All Union Budget documents, including the Annual Financial Statement (commonly known as the Budget), Demand for Grants (DG), Finance Bill, etc., will also be available on the 'Union Budget Mobile App' for hassle-free access to Budget documents by Members of Parliament (MPs) and the general public in a digitally accessible mode, it said.
Nirmala Sitharaman to make history: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present a record ninth consecutive budget on February 1. 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 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 had presented nine and eight budgets, respectively, under different prime ministers. Sitharaman, however, will continue to hold the record of presenting the most budgets on the trot - nine straight budgets under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
First Budget: The first-ever Union Budget of independent India was presented on November 26, 1947, by the nation's first finance minister, R K Shanmukham Chetty.
Most Numbers Of Budget: Former Prime Minister Morarji Desai holds the record for presenting the largest number of budgets. He has presented a total of 10 budgets during his tenure as finance minister under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and later under Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
He presented his first budget on February 28, 1959, and presented full budgets in the following two years before presenting an interim one in 1962. This was followed by two full budgets. After four years, he presented another interim budget in 1967, followed by three full budgets in 1967, 1968, and 1969, presenting a total of 10 budgets.
Second Highest Number of Budgets: Former finance minister P Chidambaram presented the budget on nine occasions. He first presented the budget on March 19, 1996, during the United Front government led by Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda. He presented another budget under the same government the next year and returned to the hot seat when the Congress-led UPA came to power in 2009.
He presented five budgets between 2004 and 2008. After a stint as Union Home Minister, he was back in the finance ministry and presented budgets in 2013 and 2014.
Third Highest Number Of Budgets: Pranab Mukherjee presented eight budgets during his tenure as finance minister. He presented budgets in 1982, 1983 and 1984 and five straight ones between February 2009 and March 2012 in the Congress-led UPA government.
Manmohan Singh: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh presented five straight budgets between 1991 and 1995 when he was finance minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government.
Longest Budget Speech: Sitharaman holds the record for the longest budget speech when her presentation on February 1, 2020, lasted two hours and 40 minutes. At the time, she cut short her speech with two pages remaining.
Shortest Budget Speech: Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel's interim Budget speech in 1977 is so far the shortest at just 800 words.
Budget 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 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.
Budget Date: The Budget presentation date was in 2017, changed to February 1 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.
