Indian Budget - Interesting facts

  • The word "Budget" originates from the French word "bougette“, which means leather bag.
  • Budget was introduced for the first time in India on April 7, 1860, by the East India Company to the British Crown.
  • The first budget for the union of India was presented on November 26, 1947, by the first finance minister RK Shanukham Chetty.
  • Till 1955, the Budget was presented only in English. 
  • However from 1955-56, the Budget documents are printed both in English and Hindi
  • Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister to present the Union Budget in 1958-59. 
  • Other than him, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were the only PMs to have presented the Union Budget in their respective terms.
  • Morarji Desai, the former Finance Minister of India, has presented the budget a record 10 times.
  • Indira Gandhi was the first woman to present the Budget for 1970-71.
  • 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.
  • Budget presented by Manmohan Singh in 1991 is known as ‘The Epochal Budget'.
  • In 2001, NDA Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha changed the time of budget presentation from 5 pm to 11 am.
  • From 2017, the budget has been presented on February 1 following the changes introduced by the then finance minister Arun Jaitley. 
  • Also the rail budget was merged with the Union Budget. 

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