Budget 2024- Why Budget presentation date changed from month end to Feb 1-

Budget 2024: Why Budget presentation date changed from month end to Feb 1?

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to present the interim Budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 on February 1, 2024. The Budget will have no major announcements with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections scheduled for early next year. The full budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 will be presented after the formation of the new government following the general elections. The Budget is allotted for the upcoming fiscal year, which runs from 1st April to 31st March of the next year.

Interestingly, the Budget used to be presented every year at the end of February till a few years back. The Budget presentation date was changed in 2017, and ever since, the Budget document is presented by the finance minister on February 1 instead of the month’s end. In 2017, then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that the Union Budget would no longer be tabled on the last working day of February as it used to be in the colonial era. But why did the government decide to change the Budget presentation date?

Not only this, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has also ended the age old British tradition to present a separate Budget for Railways. He merged the Railways Budget with the Union Budget in 2017.

While this was the story behind the Budget presentation date change, till 1999, the Union Budget used to be presented at 5 pm on the last date of February. This again, was a British-India tradition which was not changed even after the Independence. The time for the presentation during the colonial era was decided based on Britain’s local time. During the colonial period, the Budget was presented in Britain at 11 am (local time) which was at 5 pm in India as the Indian time zone is 4.5 hours ahead of British Summer Time.

Later In 1999, Yashwant Sinha, then Finance Minister during Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, suggested that the Union Budget should be presented at 11 am. The idea behind the change was that it would give ample time for better analysis of numbers resulting in more informed debate and discussions.

After the approval, Yashwant Sinha presented the 1999 Union Budget at 11 am, for the first time in the history of Independent India and since then the Union Budget has been presented every year at 11 am.