Change In Budget Presentation Time, Date: Who Broke The Age-Old Norms (Photo @nsitharaman)
The BJP-led NDA government’s first Budget presentation after returning to power for the third term will be held on July 23. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the 2024 Union Budget at 11 am in Lok Sabha.
After gaining independence, India, for a long, followed colonial timing – 5 pm – for presenting the Union Budget. However, in 1999, Yashwant Sinha, the then-finance Minister under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government, changed the Budget time to 11 am. Till then, India followed a timing convenient to the British government, allowing the simultaneous announcement and coordination of the Budget in London and India as Indian time is over five hours ahead of the London time zone.
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The timing remained the same untill the government changed it in 1999, noting that India does not need to follow the London time zone as it is no longer a British colony. Yashwant Sinha pointed out that presenting the Budget at 11 am would give lawmakers and officials more time to study and debate the fiscal policies of the Budget in detail. Since then, successive governments have made it a new norm, presenting the Union Budget at 11 am.
Notably, in 2017, then Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, made another change to the age-old tradition by presenting the Budget on the first of February, breaking the norm of presenting the Budget on the final working day of the month, a practice India followed since colonial era.
Then, the finance minister while aiming at breaking the 96-year-old practice, citing convenience for the shift saying that presenting the Budget at the end of February left the government with minimal time to prepare for new policies and changes and the change would hence allow a smoother implementation of new budgetary policies from the start of the new financial year on April 1.
The 2024 Union Budget presentation scheduled On July 23 will be broadcast live on various platforms, and is expected to define Modi 3.0 government’s vision for the country’s economic boost.
