Presenting her seventh consecutive budget on Tuesday, July 23, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union Finance Minister created history in Indian politics. This accomplishment breaks the previous record held by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Desai unveiled six consecutive budgets. 

The first budget of the Modi 3.0 era was unveiled in the Lok Sabha at 11 AM. It lays out the financial plan for the coming fiscal year. 

Surpassing Desai’s Record 

The past record of holding the most consecutive budget presentations was by Morarji Desai. During his tenure as the finance minister (1959-1964), he presented five full budgets and one interim budget. Now, Nirmala Sitharaman has overtaken Desai in the record of presenting highest number of budget presentation, consecutively. 

However, Desai still holds the record of presenting 10 budgets during his career. Also, Desai proposed budgets in subsequent years that followed, 1967, 1968 and 1969, beyond his tenure from 1959 to 1964. 

Longest Budget Speech of Nirmala

On February 1, 2020, Sitharaman made headlines for delivering the longest budget speech. The speech lasted for two hours and forty minutes. Interestingly, despite her speech lasting a long time, she concluded her speech abruptly, leaving the last two pages of content.  

Other Ministers holding the rank 

Following Desai, P. Chidambaram has nine budgets to his name and holds the second place. Chidambaram delivered his first budget in 1997-1998. 

The former Indian President, Pranab Mukherjee, presented a total of eight budgets. He presented his first budget in 1982-1983, followed by him serving as finance minister from 2009 to 2012.  

The Government assesses the current state of the economy every year through the Economic Survey (a study presented before the Union Budget). Additionally, it provides insights about the short-and-medium-term outlooks for the economy.