The Indian budget is a matter of grave concern for all sectors of the economy. As the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to announce the country’s budget on February 1 at 11 am, here are some details about how long the Indian budget presentation speech is –
The budget session at Parliament’s lower house will be held in two parts. The first part will be from January 31 to February 11 and the second part will be from March 14 to April 8.
Union Budget 2022 schedule
As is protocol, President Ram Nath Kovind’s joint address to both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will flag of the Budget Session on January 31. Next, the Economic Survey, highlighting economic development and major challenges faced in the last year, will be tabled in front of the Parliament on the same day. The Union Budget 2022 will be presented before the Parliament by the Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman the next day. The speech will be followed by deliberations during the first phase of the Budget Session till February 11.
Budget presentation is an important event that is watched over by policy experts, businessmen and every commoner because it affects the overall financial planning of every household. Prior to 2016, the country’s then finance minister announced the budget on the last working day of February. This practice was changed by former finance minister Arun Jaitley.
People all over the country look forth to listening the finance minister’s speech to gauge the cost of everyday products that they use. This commonality makes the budget speech even more important.
Notably, it is important for the government to deliver clear speeches in order to convey proper message to the voters.
Length of budget speech
India’s budget presentation is known for being overtly long as an average speech lies between 90 to 120 minutes. The longest budget speech till date was delivered by current Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Union Budget 2020-21 on February 1, 2020. The speech took a total of 2 hours and 42 minutes, in the middle of which Sitharaman felt unwell.
The remaining speech was then delivered by the speaker. This speech was lengthier than the 2 hours and 17 minutes long speech that she delivered in July 2019.
The shortest budget speech till date was delivered by former Finance Minister Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel in just 800 words in 1977.
Source: dnaindia.com