The Union Budget for the financial year 2024-25 will be presented in the Lok Sabha on July 23. This will be the first budget since the BJP-led NDA government's re-election for a third term earlier this year.
Who will present the budget for 2024?
The Union Budget for 2024-2025 will be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23, 2024. This will be her seventh budget presentation, surpassing the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai for the most budget presentations. She presented the Interim Budget on February 1 this year.
Nirmala Sitharaman has served as India's Finance Minister for five years, presenting six budgets so far from 2019 to 2023, including the 2024 interim budget. She also held the position of Minister of State for Finance for six to seven months.
Before Nirmala Sitharaman, the late Arun Jaitley presented five consecutive budgets from 2014-15 to 2018-19. Following his tenure, Piyush Goyal, now the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, presented the interim budget for the fiscal year 2019-20 on February 1, 2019.
What was Morarji Desai's record?
Morarji Desai was the fourth Prime Minister of India from 1977 to 1979. He held the record for the most Budgets presented by any Indian finance minister for over 50 years. During his tenure as Finance Minister from 1959 to 1964, he presented five annual budgets and one interim budget. He also presented two more interim budgets in 1962 and 1967.
His impressive record of six consecutive budgets presented during his tenure as Finance Minister stood unmatched for over five decades until Nirmala Sitharaman broke it in 2024.