Union Budget 2020: Full schedule of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2020 on Saturday, her second as the country's finance minister. Businesses and trade pundits are waiting with a bated breath, expecting her to bail out the economy of the ongoing slump.

On a lighter vein, it also remains to be seen if she would carry documents in a briefcase or a traditional bahi-khata which she used for her maiden budget presentation. On the day of the Union Budget presentation in 2019, Sitharaman broke away from long-standing traditions of colonial-era when she ditched the briefcase and opted for traditional bahi khata, which is a kind of a ledger wrapped in a red coloured cloth.

On Saturday, Sitharaman will leave from her residence, 15 Safdarjung Road, at around 8.30 am for the Finance Ministry North Block. After completing the final formalities of the budget there, the Finance Minister will leave for Rashtrapati Bhavan at around 9.15 am. Sitharaman along with Minister of State Anurag Thakur and the entire Budget team will do a photo op at around 9.15-9.30 am at North Block.

After receiving approval from President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Finance Minister will leave for Parliament directly and reach there by about 10-10.15 am.

A Cabinet meeting will take place in Parliament around 10.30-10:45 am and final approval has to be obtained from the Cabinet to present the Budget in Parliament. Sitharaman will then present the Union Budget 2020 in Parliament at 11 am.

Before Sitharaman, a long-standing tradition in connection with the budget presentation was broken during the Atal Behari Vajpayee government with the then finance minister Yashwant Sinha presenting the budget at 11 am rather than at the traditional time of 5 pm. Since then all governments have been presenting the budget at 11 am.