Union Budget 2020-21: Printing documents begins with Halwa ceremony

The printing of the documents of the Union Budget 2020-21 began today with the traditional Halwa ceremony at the Ministry of Finance, North Block. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presided over the ceremony in the presence of Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur.

Other officials of the ministry also participated at the ceremony at North Block in New Delhi.

The Halwa ceremony is held every year before the budget documents start printing. Halwa is prepared in a large vessel and is served to the officers and support staff of the finance ministry involved directly in Budget preparation.

The Finance Ministry also tweeted a few images of the ceremony where all the officials are present. The tweet reads, " The Union Finance Minister, Smt. @nsitharaman presided over #HalwaCeremony today at North Block to mark the beginning of printing of #Budget2020 documents. MoS Shri @ianuragthakur was also present besides senior @FinMinIndia officials".

After this ceremony, Finance Ministry officials will stay in the Budget printing press until the Budget is presented in Parliament. The Union Budget will be presented in Parliament on February 1. The Economic Survey will be presented on 31st January.

The Budget session will start a day before with President Ram Nath Kovind's speech and the economic survey will be presented by Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian on the same day as well. Notably, this year's budget will be presented on a Saturday and it is a day when the stock exchanges as well Parliament will work unlike any other weekend when they remain closed.