Union Budget 2024: FM Nirmala Sitharaman to break THIS record with 7th consecutive budget

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is set to present her seventh consecutive Union Budget next month, will be breaking the record set by late former prime minister Morarji Desai who had presented six budgets in a row.

Sitharaman, the country’s finance minister since 2019, had equalled Desai’s record of six consecutive budgets on February 1 when she presented the interim budget.

Although Desai had tabled a total of 10 union budgets during his parliamentary career, he had presented only six out of them consecutively, between 1959 and 1964. He later went on to serve as the prime minister from March 24, 1977 to July 28, 1979.

Sitharaman, who is also the country’s first full-time woman finance minister, has so far presented five complete budgets and one interim budget. She has already surpassed the five-budget records of former finance ministers such as Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha.

When will the Union Budget 2024-25 be presented?

The date is yet to be announced officially by the government. Reports, however, claim that Sitharaman is most likely to table the budget in Parliament in the second half of July. The Economic Times, citing sources, reported that the government would re-convene Parliament session from July 22, and subsequently the budget would be presented.

This will be the first full-year budget under the third tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) slipped behind the majority mark in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, but succeeded to retain power with support from smaller allies.

Ahead of the release of the Union Budget, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has called for increased capital expenditure and pushed for reforms in key sectors like agriculture, land and labour.

"The capex should be raised by approximately 25% in FY25 over the revised estimate of FY24," he said. This would be higher as compared to the 16.8% jump in capex projected in the interim budget.