Q. Consider the following statements on Union budget:
- The Budget was first introduced in India on April 7, 1860 by James Wilson.
- Shortest budget speech was delivered by Morarji Desai in 1977.
- In 2019, Sitharaman became the first woman to have presented the budget.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer:
Only 1
Notes: The Budget was first introduced in India on April 7, 1860, by James Wilson. Independent India’s first budget was presented on November 26, 1947, by Finance Minister R K Shanmukham Chetty. Nirmala Sitharaman holds the record for the longest budget speech at 2 hours and 42 minutes in 2020, surpassing her own 2019 record of 2 hours and 17 minutes. Manmohan Singh delivered the longest speech by word count (18,650 words) in 1991, while Hirubhai Patel gave the shortest at 800 words in 1977. Moraraji Desai presented the most budgets (10) from 1962-69. The budget presentation time changed from 5 pm to 11 am in 1999, and Arun Jaitley moved it to February 1 in 2017. The budget was printed in English until 1955, after which it was printed in both Hindi and English. The 2021-22 budget was paperless, and Sitharaman became the second woman to present the budget in 2019. The Railway budget was merged with the Union Budget in 2017 after being separate for 92 years. Until 1950, the budget was printed at Rashtrapati Bhavan before moving to a press in New Delhi, and a government press was established in North Block in 1980.