Budget 2024: On February 1, Finance Minister Sitharaman will present her sixth consecutive budget speech. She will read the first interim budget speech for the financial year 2024-25 (FY25).
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was appointed as India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the second consecutive general election in 2019. Despite being the first woman finance minister to hold the full-time role, Sitharaman is only the second woman to present the budget.
First woman to present the Union Budget
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first woman to present the Union Budget of India for 1970–71. He took over the role after the resignation of the then Finance Minister Moraji Desai. During this period, Gandhiji was the Prime Minister and she also achieved the title of the first woman Finance Minister of India. However, she held the post for a short period until Yashwantrao Chavan took over the finance portfolio in March 1971.
Nirmala Sitharaman is India’s first full-time woman finance minister.
When ministers had to step down, prime ministers took over the finance portfolio. It began with Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who read the Union Budget of 1948 after T.T. Krishnamachari was found guilty on corruption charges. Now Nirmala Sitharaman is the first full-time woman Finance Minister of India.
He presented India’s first budget
The first Indian budget was presented on 7 April 1860 by James Wilson, a Scottish economist of the East India Company. RK Shanmukham Chetty presented the first budget of independent India on November 26, 1947.
How long was the longest budget speech?
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman holds the record for the longest speech for the Union Budget 2020, which lasted 2 hours and 42 minutes. His budget speech for FY23 lasted for about 1.5 hours. For the interim Budget 2024, the Finance Minister has already warned not to expect any major announcement.
