Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to present the union budget on February 1 for the financial year 2025-26 with proposals containing the Centre’s expenditure, revenues and tax proposals.
This will be the second full budget of the NDA government since assuming power for the third time under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A budget is a statement of the Centre’s estimated revenues and expenditures for a financial year. The term “budget” is not mentioned anywhere in the Indian Constitution.
Article 112 (Part 5) of the Constitution says that the President of India shall, in respect of every financial year, cause to be laid before both houses of the parliament a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure for that year.
The budget or the annual financial statement is prepared by the Budget division under the Department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry. The document is prepared in consultation with the NITI Aayog and the concerned ministries.
Language of the Union Budget
The Union budget document is prepared in the official languages of the Indian Union, English and Hindi. However, the budget in newly independent India was printed only in English, as a matter of convention following colonial traditions.
The first-ever Indian budget was presented in 1860 by British MP James Wilson during colonial rule. The budget was intended exclusively for the British people and the Indian ruling class, who were conversant in the language.
The convention continued until 1955 when Congress finance minister CD Deshmukh decided to make the budget accessible to the Indian masses. Deshmukh decided to print the 1955 budget document in both English and Hindi.
Deshmukh became the finance minister in 1950 and oversaw the implementation of the first five-year plan. As finance minister, he also served as the ex-officio chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission, which the NITI Aayog replaced on January 1, 2015.
The Congress leader was also the founding member of the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, India’s first independent economic policy institute, established in 1956 at the behest of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
During his tenure at the RBI from 1930 to 1949, Deshmukh was one of five members representing India at the Breton Woods Conference, which founded the IMF.
