Budget 2024: Ms Sitharaman had presented an interim Budget in February. (File)
The full Budget for the year 2024-25 will be presented on July 23, with the Parliament session beginning a day earlier, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju announced on Saturday.
The Parliamentary Affairs minister said the Budget session will begin on July 22 and is scheduled to end on August 12.
"Hon'ble President of India, on the recommendation of Government of India, has approved the proposal for summoning of both the Houses of Parliament for the Budget Session, 2024 from 22nd July, 2024 to 12 August, 2024 (Subject to exigencies of Parliamentary Business). Union Budget, 2024-25 will be presented in Lok Sabha on 23 July, 2024," the minister posted on X.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had presented the interim Budget in February in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. She will be presenting her seventh consecutive Budget, becoming the first finance minister in India's history to do so, surpassing the previous record set by Morarji Desai.
This will be the first Budget presented during Narendra Modi's third term as Prime Minister and also the first under him in which the BJP does not have a majority on its own.
Expectations from the Budget have been high and were fuelled further when President Droupadi Murmu said in her joint address that it will see "many historic steps" and accelerate the pace of reforms.
"This Budget will be an effective document of the government's far-reaching policies and futuristic vision. Along with major economic and social decisions, many historic steps will also be seen in this Budget... "The pace of reforms will be further accelerated in tune with the aspirations of people of India for rapid development," she had said on June 27.
For the middle and salaried classes, one of the biggest expectations is that there will be a change in the income tax structure which will leave more disposable income in their hands.
Stormy Session?
The special session of the Parliament, the first in the 18th Lok Sabha, witnessed stormy scenes with the strengthened opposition looking to make its presence felt under the new Leader of the Opposition in the House, Rahul Gandhi. In the general elections, the results for which were declared on June 4, the INDIA alliance won 232 seats and restricted the BJP to 240. The NDA, though, has a comfortable majority with 293 MPs.
The NEET paper leak exam issue, Manipur, Emergency, Agnipath scheme and the alleged undermining of the Constitution by the ruling dispensation dominated the special session and are likely to make their presence felt in the Budget session as well.