Budget 2026: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set to make history with 9th consecutive Union budget on February 1

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present a record ninth consecutive budget on February 1 which is expected to contain reform measures aimed at shoring up economic growth amid a volatile geopolitical situationThis will take Sitharaman closer to the record of 10 budgets that were presented by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai over different time periodsDesai presented a total of 6 budgets during his tenure as finance minister in 19591964 and 4 budgets between 19671969Former finance ministers P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee had presented nine and eight budgets respectively under different prime ministersSitharaman however will continue to hold the record of presenting the most budgets on the trot nine straight budgets under Prime Minister Narendra ModiShe was in 2019 appointed as Indias first fulltime woman finance minister when Prime Minister Modi won a decisive second termAfter Modi came back to power in 2024 for the third time Sitharaman continued to retain her finance portfolioSo far she has presented a total of eight straight budgets including an interim one in February 2024Here are some facts related to the Budget presentation in Independent IndiaFIRST BUDGET The firstever Union Budget of independent India was presented on November 26 1947 by the nations first finance minister R K Shanmukham ChettyMOST NUMBER OF BUDGETS 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 ShastriHe presented his first budget on February 28 1959 and presented full budgets in the following two years before presenting an interim one in 1962This 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 budgetsSECOND HIGHEST NUMBER OF BUDGETS Former finance minister P Chidambaram presented the budget on nine occasionsHe first presented the budget on March 19 1996 during the United Front government led by Prime Minister H D Deve GowdaHe presented another budget under the same government the next year and returned to the hot seat when the Congressled UPA came to power in 2009He 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 2014THIRD HIGHEST NUMBER OF BUDGETS Pranab Mukherjee presented eight budgets during his tenure as finance ministerHe presented budgets in 1982 1983 and 1984 and five straight ones between February 2009 and March 2012 in the Congressled UPA governmentMANMOHAN SINGH Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh presented five straight budgets between 1991 and 1995 when he was finance minister in the P V Narasimha Rao governmentLONGEST BUDGET SPEECH Sitharaman holds the record for the longest budget speech when her presentation on February 1 2020 lasted two hours and 40 minutesAt the time she cut short her speech with two pages remainingSHORTEST BUDGET SPEECH Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patels interim Budget speech in 1977 is so far the shortest at just 800 wordsTIMING The Budget was traditionally presented on the last day of February at 5 pmThe timing followed a colonial era practice when the announcements could be made in London and India at the same timeIndia 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 KingdomThe timing was changed in 1999 when the then finance minister Yashwant Sinha in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government presented the budget at 11 amSince then budgets are presented at 11 amDATE The Budget presentation date was in 2017 changed to the 1st of February to allow the government to complete the Parliamentary approval process by Marchend and allow implementation of the Budget from the start of the fiscal on April 1Presenting the Budget on February 29 meant that the implementation could not start before MayJune after accounting for 23 months of the parliamentary approval processThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever