Budget session of Parliament to begin tomorrow with President Ram Nath Kovind's address to both Houses

Ahead of the Budget session of Parliament, Rajya Sabha Chairman, M Venkaiah Naidu has convened an all-party meeting tomorrow to ensure smooth functioning of the House. The meeting will take place virtually.

The government has also convened an all-party meeting on the same day to seek cooperation from all political parties for the smooth functioning of the Budget Session. This meeting will also be held virtually in view of the COVID-19 situation.

The floor leaders of political parties in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha have been invited to the meeting.

The Budget Session will begin tomorrow with President Ram Nath Kovind's address to both the Houses of Parliament.

Economic Survey 2021-22 will be tabled on the same day in the Parliament. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2022-23 on February 1, 2022. Both the Houses of Parliament will function in shifts to ensure Covid safety protocol.

About the Union Budget

The Budget was first introduced in India on April 7, 1860, when Scottish economist and politician James Wilson from the East India Company presented it to the British Crown. The first budget of independent India was presented on November 26, 1947, by the then Finance Minister RK Shanmukham Chetty.

Current Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman holds the record of delivering the longest budget speech. She spoke for 2 hours and 42 minutes while presenting the Union Budget 2020-21 on February 1, 2020. With two pages still remaining, she had to cut short her speech as she felt unwell. She asked the Speaker to consider the remaining part of the speech as read. During the course of this speech, she broke her own record of July 2019 - her maiden Budget - when she had spoken for 2 hours and 17 minutes.

Besides, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delivered the longest budget speech in terms of words in 1991. He presented the then budget as the finance minister under the Narasimha Rao government.

In 2018, then finance minister Arun Jaitley's speech with 18,604 words was the second-longest in terms of word count. Jaitley spoke for 1 hour and 49 minutes.

Until 1955, the Union Budget was presented in English. However, the Congress-led government later decided to print the Budget papers in both Hindi and English. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic turned the Budget for 2021-22 paperless - a first in Independent India.