01 February,2024 10:55 AM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondent
Pic/PTI
The Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday approved the pre-election budget 2024-25, sources said, reported news agency PTI.
Following this, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her sixth budget in the Lok Sabha. She will equal the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, reported PTI.
Sitharaman, the first full-time woman finance minister of the country, has presented five full budgets since July 2019 and will present an interim or vote-on-account budget on Thursday, reported PTI.
With this, she will surpass the records of her predecessors like Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had presented five budgets in a row.
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Desai, as finance minister, had presented five annual budgets and one interim budget between 1959 and 1964.
The interim budget 2024-25 will be a vote-on-account that will give the government authority to spend certain sums of money till a new government comes to office after the April-May general elections.
Meanwhile, keeping with tradition, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman first called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhawan together with her colleagues Ministers of State Bhagwat Karad and Pankaj Chaudhary ahead of the Budget presentation in Parliament on Thursday morning.
Sitharaman earlier arrived at the Finance Ministry ahead of her big speech in Parliament today.
She was seen carrying a red-coloured 'bahi khata' which contains Budget document, in paperless form.
Over the past three years, a new tradition has been set, where the finance minister carries budget documents in electronic form in a bahi khata.
At 11 am, Union Finance Minister Sitharaman will table the interim budget as the Lok Sabha polls are due to be held this year. This will be her sixth Budget as the Finance Minister and last in the second term of the the Modi government.
The interim budget will take care of the financial needs of the intervening period until a government is formed after the Lok Sabha polls after which a full budget will be presented by the new government.
The Budget Session of Parliament commenced on Wednesday with President Droupadi Murmu addressing a joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI)
