Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who has already presented five full Budgets, will take the floor of the Lok Sabha later today to present her first interim Budget.
Besides being a measure of the state of the Indian economy, the interim Budget is a stop-gap financial plan that will remain in place till the time a new government is elected by way of the general election. The interim Budget includes estimates for the Government of India’s expenditure, revenue, fiscal deficit, overall financial performance and projections.
With this being the last Budget to be presented by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government before the Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are on Sitharaman who will become the second finance minister to have presented six consecutive budget speeches (five full and one interim). The only other finance minister to present so many consecutive budgets was Morarji Desai.
Her Budget speech is expected to begin at 11 am.
Budget 2024 LIVE UPDATES:
09:30 am: In a free-wheeling conversation with ThePrint, Ashwani Mahajan, National Co-Convenor of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, explains his views on the economy, FDI, private investment, the government’s privatisation plans and what he expects from Interim Budget 2024. Watch:
09:15 am: FM Sitharaman has continued the BJP’s reform of the Budget presentation process by using the pandemic to do away with the physical printing of budget documents. Since 2021, each Budget has been entirely digital.
Previously, in 2017, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley brought forward the Budget presentation date to 1 February from the earlier date of the last working date of February. That year, he also merged the Railway Budget with the Union Budget.
#WATCH | Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman along with her team before the presentation of the country’s interim Budget pic.twitter.com/hohpB7qtZi
— ANI (@ANI) February 1, 2024
09:00 am: This will be the first Budget to be presented in the new Parliament building.
08:45 am: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrives at the Ministry of Finance.
#WATCH | Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrives at the Ministry of Finance as she is set to present the interim Budget today pic.twitter.com/46Ut7oHdzE
— ANI (@ANI) February 1, 2024
08:40 am: The term ‘Interim Budget’ isn’t official. Officially, it’s called a ‘vote on account’ since its’s supposed to be simple votes on account that provide the government with funds to run the country until the general elections are decided. Coming as they do just months before the Lok Sabha elections, it is tempting to use Interim Budgets as vote-getting tools.
Read TCA Sharad Raghavan’s latest column, Standard Deviation, on why Prime Minister Narendra Modi must ensure that the upcoming Budget speech doesn’t devolve into pre-election propaganda.