Budget 2024: FM Nirmala Sitharaman poses with red-sleeve tablet ahead of budget presentation

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, posed with a red sleeve tablet ahead of presenting her seventh consecutive Union Budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 today which is scheduled to begin at 11 am.

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday (July 23) posed with a red sleeve tablet ahead of the Budget presentation. She is set to present her seventh consecutive Budget for the fiscal year 2024-25. This will be her seventh full Budget for the fiscal year (April 2024 to March 2025), surpassing former Prime Minister Morarji Desai's record, who presented five consecutive full budgets and one interim budget between 1959 and 1964.

The budget presentation will begin at 11 am in the parliament.

India's inaugural Union Budget, following its independence, was unveiled on November 26, 1947, by RK Shanmukham Chetty, the country's first Finance Minister, marking a significant milestone in the nation's financial history. Former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee both presented five consecutive Union Budgets during their tenures.

The Union Budget is being presented during the Monsoon session this year, following an Interim Budget in February due to the Lok Sabha elections. The Monsoon session began on July 22 and will include 19 sittings, concluding on August 12.

Nirmala Sitharaman holds the record for the longest budget address, delivering a speech lasting two hours and forty minutes on February 1, 2020. She had two pages left to cover when she had to interrupt her speech.