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Budget 2020: Key historical facts to know

NEW DELHI: The Union Budget 2020 is set to be presented on February 1. This is the second Budget to be presented by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in less than a span of seven months.


The Budget is crucial for the government as it will look to bring out measures that help revive economic growth, which has fallen to over six year lows.



Formal printing of the Budget documents began on Monday with the symbolic 'halwa-making ceremony'.

Here are some lesser known facts about the history of Union Budget presented by different finance ministers over the years:

* The first Budget of India was presented on November 26, 1947 by the then finance minister R K Shanmukham Chetty.

* Till 1955, the Budget was presented only in English. However from 1955-56, the Budget documents are printed both in English and Hindi.

* Maximum number of ten Budgets has been presented by Moraji Desai, while P Chidambaram has presented eight.

* Pranab Mukherjee, Yashwant Sinha, YB Chavan and CD Deshmukh have all presented seven Budgets each.

* Indira Gandhi was the first woman to present the Budget when she took charge as the finance minister in 1970-71 for sometime. She was also the Prime Minister then.

* Budget presented in the year 1973-74 was known as the 'Black Budget' due to high budget deficit of Rs 550 crore at that time. It was presented by Yashwantrao B Chavan.

* Until 2016, the Union Budget of India was presented in the Lok Sabha on the last day of February. However, from 2017, the budget has been presented on February 1 following the changes introduced by the then finance minister Arun Jaitley.

* The Rail Budget, which was presented separately for 92 years was merged with the Union Budget in the year 2017.

* Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman became the first woman finance minister to present the full-time Union Budget in July 2019.

* Departing from the 'colonial' briefcase, Sitharaman arrived at the Parliament with Union Budget 2019 documents drapped in a four-fold red cloth called a 'bahi-khata' (ledger).

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