Nirmala Sitharaman to make history with her 7th Budget, surpasses Morarji Desai

New Delhi, July 23: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to make history by presenting her seventh consecutive Budget on Tuesday, surpassing the record of former Prime Minister and Finance Minister Morarji Desai.

Sitharaman, who holds the record for the longest budget speech delivered on February 1, 2020, which lasted two hours and 40 minutes before being cut short, will now also hold the record for the maximum consecutive budget presentations.

Desai presented six budgets during his tenure as Finance Minister from 1959 to 1963 and from 1967 to 1969.

Former Prime Minister Morarji Desai still holds the overall record for presenting the most number of budget speeches, with ten in total. He served as Finance Minister under former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri.

The Union Budget 2024 aims to lay a roadmap for Viksit Bharat by 2047. Following the budget presentation, Sitharaman will address a press conference alongside Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Finance Secretary T. V. Somanathan, other Secretaries of the Ministry of Finance, and Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran.

The Union Budget is expected to focus on several key areas, including greater allocations for rural economy, taxation reforms, infrastructure development, local manufacturing, job and skill creation, and increased production-linked incentive (PLI) allocation to labour-intensive sectors.

Changes in the income tax structure to benefit taxpayers and measures to improve the ease of doing business are also anticipated to be major highlights.