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Some interesting facts about Indian budget

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R K Shanmukham Shetty presented independent India`s first budget.

Till date, Morarji Desai has had the longest tenure as FM, 8 years.

Desai was FM for 5 years under Nehru and 3 under Indira Gandhi.

Morarji Desai presented two Budgets on his birthday - in 1964 and 1968.

C.D. Deshmukh was the first Indian Governor of RBI to have presented the Interim Budget for 1951-52.

Jaswant Singh was FM for 13 days.

During Jaswant Singh`s regime, Enron got counter-guarantee.

Initially, budget papers were printed in Rashtrapati Bhavan. In 1950, budget papers were leaked. Thischanged the printing venue to Minto Road located security press.

Since 1980, budget papers are printed in North Block.

A week before the budget is presented, the employees of the press stay in the ministry and have no

means of communicating with the outside world.

The Budget process has its roots in the Bombay Plan of 1944. Bombay Plan was authored by John

Mathai, GD Birla & JRD Tata.

Revenue deficit is excess of revenue expenditure over revenue receipts.

Revenue expenditure doesn`t result in capital formation (subsidies, salaries).

Revenue receipts is money that Govt doesn`t have to return (duties,taxes).

The government can borrow from three sources. From the market, small saving deposits & from PSU

banks.

The govt borrows from the market 3 to 4 times annually Plan Expenditure is the Budget allocation to

fulfill 5-yr Plan obligations.

Plan Expenditure creates new assets for economy.

Total Plan Expenditure in 5 yrs should match allocation for a 5-yr Plan.

Total Plan expenditure in 5 years has always been lower than target .

The 1991-92 final and interim Budgets were presented by Finance Ministers of two different political

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parties. While Yashwant Sinha presented the interim budget, the final budget was presented by

Manmohan Singh.

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

Jawahar Lal Nehru was the first Prime Minister to present the budget when he held the Finance portfolioin 1958-59.

R Venkataraman was the only Finance Minister who later became the President of India.

Three interim budgets were presented in the 1990s. While Yashwant Sinha presented the interim Budgets

for 1991-92 and 1998-99, Manmohan Singh presented the 1996-97 interim Budget.

The precedent for the convention of the budget speech beginning 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. He also felt that this would give traders an opportunity to study the

announcements overnight instead of in the middle of a busy day.

P Chidambaram rewrote India`s Exim Policy in one non-stop eight-hour sitting in July 1991, when he On

November 26, 1947 R.K. Shanmukham Chetty had presented the first budget of Independent India. But

actually it was a review of the economy and no new taxes were proposed as the budget day for 1948-49

was just 95 days away.

From then onwards an interim budget began to mean a budget for a short period.

Chetty resigned a few days later due to differences with Prime Minister Nehru.became the Commerce

Minister.