Union Budget 2021: The Narendra Modi-led BJP government is going to present the 9th budget of its tenure till now in the month of February. This time the budget is going to be different because, given the situation of COVID-19, the government has decided that this time the budget document will not be printed. The copy of Budget 2021 will be distributed electronically to members of Parliament. For the first time after independence, budget documents will not be published physically.
Even before this, some traditions were broken and new ones started while the BJP government was in power. One of these is the tradition of presenting the budget in the morning rather than the evening. Before independence, the budget in India was presented at 5 pm in the British rule. But in 1999 this custom ended and the budget started to be presented at 11 am.
Why was the budget presented in the evening?
Actually, the time of five o’clock in the evening to present the budget in India was set by the British clock. In Britain, the budget is presented at 11 am. Prior to independence, the allocation of budget for India was also presented in the UK budget and members of the UK Parliament ‘House of Commons’ and ‘House of Lords’ used to listen to the budget of India. Therefore, during the British rule, it was necessary to present the budget in India at the same time, when the budget is presented in Britain. When it is 11 am in Britain, it is 5 pm in India at that time. For this reason, the time to present the budget in India was 5 pm. Sir Basil Blackett started the tradition of presenting the budget in the evening in the year 1924.
Business companies in India also benefited from the presentation of the budget in India in the evening before independence. The main reason for this was that the London Stock Exchange opens at 5 pm according to Indian time.
Yashwant Sinha brought change
This tradition changed when presenting the budget for the financial year 1999-2000 and Yashwant Sinha, who was the Finance Minister in the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, presented the general budget for the first time at 11 am. On 27 February 1999, Sinha presented the budget for the financial year 1999-2000. Sinha gave another important reason for the change in the time of presenting the budget. According to Sinha, after presenting the budget, a long round of interviews begins, due to which, after waking up late at night, there is fatigue. For this reason its time was changed today.