Budget 2024: What Is Bahi Khata? An Evolution From Budget Briefcase To Going Paperless

The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to present the Union Budget today, i.e., July 23, 2024, at 11 am. Let us know in detail how and why the Budget Briefcase was replaced by Bahi Khata.

Union Budget 2024-25: All About Bahi-Khata

We now take you through the evolution of India’s Union Budget since the era of Independence:

• James Wilson, an economist of Scottish origin working with the East India Company presented India’s first interim budget in the year 1860 during the British Raj era.
• In the year 1947, RK Shanmukham Chetty presented India’s inaugural budget which addressed critical issues like surging imports, food grain scarcity, and rampant inflation.
• In 2001, the Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha shifted the announcement time of the Budget from 5:00 PM to 11 AM. This broke a colonial tradition of releasing the Budget in the morning.
• Till the year 2016, the Budget used to be presented on the last working day of the month of February.
• In the year 2019, Nirmala Sitharaman changed the visual narrative of the budget by replacing the traditional briefcase with a ‘Bahi Khata’.
• The move towards a paperless budget marked a significant technological change in the year 2021.
• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman delivered the longest budget speech in India’s history in the year 2020. It lasted for two hours and 42 minutes. However, the speech fell short of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s word count record.
• In 1950, the Union Budget was leaked during Finance Minister John Mathai’s tenure.
• In 1980, the budget printing process was moved from Rashtrapati Bhawan to Minto Road.

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• The shift to a bilingual presentation occurred in 1955-56, which featured the budgets being printed in both English and Hindi.

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• The Budget 2024, the ‘Bahi Khata’ was replaced by a made-in-India tab, which Nirmala Sitharaman carried in a cover that looked like a ‘Bahi Khata’.