Interesting facts about Union Budget

Here are 50 lesser known Budget facts.

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: We have compiled a list of 50 lesser known Budget facts. The list is as follows:

- The word Budget was derived from the Middle English bowgette, which came from Middle French bougette, which in turn is a diminutive of bouge, meaning a leather bag.

- Indian Budget is presented in Parliament on a date fixed by the President. The Budget speech of the finance minister is usually divided in two parts. Part A deals with general economic survey of the country while Part B relates to taxation proposals.

- The Finance Bill seeking to give effect to the government’s taxation proposals which is introduced in Lok Sabha immediately after the presentation of the General Budget, is taken up for consideration and passing after the Appropriation Bill is passed.

- The employees printing the Budget papers are kept in complete isolation (quarantine) in the Finance Ministry for one week before the Budget.

- Finance Minister presents the annual Union Budget in the Parliament usually on the last working day of February.

- The Budget is the most extensive account of government finances in which revenues from all sources and expenses of all activities undertaken are aggregated. It comprises the revenue budget and the capital budget. It also contains estimates for the next fiscal year called budgeted estimates.

- The Ministry of Finance, Planning Commission, Administrative Ministries and the Comptroller & Auditor General are the main players in the declaration of the Union Budget.

- Budget was first introduced in India on 7th April, 1860 from East-India Company to British Crown.

- The first Finance Member, who presented the Budget in India, was James Wilson on 7th April, 1860.

- The precedent for the convention of the budget speech started at 5:00 pm was set by Sir Basil Blackett in 1924. According to him, this was done to give some relief to officials who worked all night to present a financial statement.

- After Independence, India’s first Finance Minister R.K. Shanmukham Chetty, presented the first Budget at 5 pm on 26th November, 1947.

- Independent India's First Budget spanned a period of just 7-1/2 months from August 15, 1947 to March 31, 1948.

- The word “Interim Budget” was for the first time introduced by R.K. Shanmukham Chetty in his budget speech for 1948-49. From then onwards an interim budget began to mean a Budget for a short period.

- The first Budget of the Republic of India was presented by John Mathai on February 28, 1950.

- Planning Commission came into existence while presenting the budget for 1950-51, the first budget for the Republic of India.

- C.D. Deshmukh, the first Indian Governor of the Reserve Bank of India as well as the Finance Minister, presented an interim budget for 1951-52.

- Budget papers began to be prepared in Hindi also from 1955-56.

- 'Krishnamachari-Kaldor's 1957 budget featured the first attempt to distinguish between active income (salaries or business) and passive income (interest or rent).

-Jawaharlal Lal Nehru was the first prime minister to present the budget when he held the union finance minister portfolio in 1958-59.

- Morarji Desai has presented the maximum number of budgets so far- ten. They included five annual and one interim budget in the second tenure when he was both Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
- Morarji Desai presented annual budgets for each year from 1959-60 to 1963-64 and the interim budget for 1962-63. The annual budgets for three years between 1967-68 and 1969-70 and the interim budget for 1967-68 were also presented by Morarji Desai.

- TT Krishnamachari as the finance minister during 1964-65 introduced the voluntary disclosure of concealed income scheme in India for the first time.

- The 1965-66 budgets contained the first disclosure scheme for black money.

- Budget of 1973-74 is known for ‘Black Budget’ in India. During this year budget deficit in 1973-74 was Rs 550 crore.

- Morarji Desai was the only Finance Minister to present two budgets on his birthday – in 1964 and 1968 on February 29.

- Indira Gandhi was the only woman Finance Minister who took over the Finance portfolio from 1970 to 1971.

- V.P. Singh as finance minister dwelt excessively on concessions for poor. In his 1986 budget, he proposed railway porters, bank loans with a subsidy for rickshaw pullers, cobblers and setting up of a small industries development bank, an accident insurance scheme for municipal sweepers.

- R Venkataraman is the only finance minister of India who later also served as the President of India from 1987-92.

- Jawaharlal Lal Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi have presented the budget while serving as the Prime Minister of India.

- Corporate tax (today is known as Minimum Alternate Tax) was first introduced by Rajiv Gandhi in 1987 Budget.

- This was the first occasion when the interim and final budgets of 1991-92 were presented by two ministers of two different political parties. Yashwant Sinha presented the interim budget while Manmohan Singh presented the final budget.

- The Epochal Budget of Manmohan Singh 1992-93, reduced peak import duty from 300 plus percent to 50 percent, liberalized the economy and promotes the foreign investments in India.

- Manmohan Singh during his speech for the 1992-93 Budget, said, "It is said that child is the father of the man, but some of our taxpayers have converted children into tax shelters for their fathers."

- Services Tax was introduced by Manmohan Singh in budget 1994 to tap the growing sector in Indian economy.

- Three interim budgets were presented in the 1990s. While Yashwant Sinha presented the interim budget for 1991-92 and 1998-99, Dr. Manmohan Singh presented for the year 1996-97.

- The final budget for 1996-97 was presented by P. Chidambaram then Tamil Maanila Congress. It was the second time that interim and final budgets were presented by two ministers of different political parties.

- The budget of 1997-98 presented by P. Chidambaram is known as the “Dream Budget”. 38. Two finance ministers, Yashwant Sinha and Manmohan Singh have presented 5 budgets in a row.

- Until year 2000, the Union Budget was announced at 5 pm on the last working day of February.

- Yashwant Sinha began the new timing of budget speech by presenting the budget from 2001 at 11:00 am.

- Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan was one of the flagship programmes which were started in the year 2000 by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The main aim of the program is universalization of elementary education. (6-14 years of age group)

- Transfer Pricing Regulations was introduced by Yashwant Sinha in Budget 2001-02.This regulation played a big role in the prevention of erosion of the tax base in India.

- Yashwant Sinha has the distinction for maximum rollbacks in the Union Budget that presented in 2002.

- Yaswant Sinha's 1991 Budget was in backdrop of forex crisis. His 1999 Budget was in backdrop of Pokhran blasts. The 2000 Budget was presented by Sinha in the backdrop of the Kargil war, while the 2001 Budget was presented in the backdrop of the devastating Gujarat earthquake.

- Schemes like National Rural Health Mission, Gender Budget and NREGA were announced first time in budget of 2005-06.

- Pranab Mukherjee presented the budget for 2012-13 on March, 16 2012. It allowed him to join the league of P Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha, Y B Chavan and C D Deshmukh who have all presented 7 full budgets.

- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the country's fourth Finance Minister T T Krishnamachari, have presented six speeches each during their tenure as finance minister.

- R Venkatraman and H M Patel have presented three Budgets each while Jaswant Singh, V P Singh, C Subramaniam, John Mathai and R K Shanmukham Chetty have presented two Budgets each to their credits.

- Jawaharlal Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh, N D Tiwari, Madhu Dandwate, S B Chavan and Sachindra Chaurdhuri have only presented one Budget each.

- Being deputy prime minister, while Morarji Desai presented Budget speech four times, Charan Singh presented the Budget speech only once.