Budget 2024: Key facts that you must know ahead of Nirmala Sitharaman's speech

The record for longest budget speech is Nirmala Sitharaman's speech on February 1, 2020 which lasted two hours and 40 minutes.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to present the first Budget of the BJP-led NDA government in its third consecutive term. This will be the full Budget for financial year 2024-25 as Nirmala Sitharaman tabled an Interim Budget earlier this year in February ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Here are key facts to know about the Union Budget:

Budget 2024: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman (PTI)

First Budget of India: The first ever Union Budget of independent India was presented on November 26, 1947 by country's first Finance Minister RK Shanmukham Chetty.

Longest Budget speech: The record for longest budget speech is Nirmala Sitharaman's speech on February 1, 2020 which lasted two hours and 40 minutes. At the time, Nirmala Sitharaman had to cut short her speech and had two pages still remaining. In the Budget, she announced new Income Tax slabs and LIC IPO. But in terms of word count, the longest Budget speech was by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 1991 at 18,650 words.

Shortest budget speech: Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel's Interim Budget speech in the year 1977 is so far the shortest Budget speech at just 800 words.

Maximum number of budgets by FM: Currently, former PM Morarji Desai holds the record for presenting the highest number at 10. Nirmala Sitharaman will surpass Morarji Desai's record when she presents her seventh consecutive Budget as the Finance Minister this time.

Major changes in Budget: Until 1999, the Budget was presented in Parliament at 5 pm on the last working day of February. In 1995, for the first time, the Budget was printed in both Hindi and English languages. During the Covid-19 time, the Budget transitioned to a paperless format. The Railway Budget was integrated into the Union Budget in the year 2017.