Budget 2022: How long can Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's speech be this year?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to propose the Union Budget for 2022-23 in the Lok Sabha on February 1. The Budget address is set to start at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. The presentation typically lasts 90 to 120 minutes. Sitharaman broke Jaswant Singh's record of making the Budget speech for two hours and 15 minutes in 2003 with her maiden budget for the fiscal year 2019-2020, which lasted two hours and 17 minutes.

Despite shortening her speech due to health difficulties, Sitharaman beat her record in 2020, delivering a lengthy 162-minute (two hours and 42 minutes) address. She was only two pages into her budget speech when she became sick and was observed wiping sweat from her brow. As her colleagues gave her candies, Sitharaman chose to end her address, requesting Speaker Om Birla consider the remainder of her speech as read. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made the longest budget speech in terms of word count, with 18,650 words.

The 256th budget session began on January 31, less than two weeks before elections in five states: Goa, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. The first half will take place from January 31 to February 11, while the second half will be from March 14 to April 8. Before being introduced in the Rajya Sabha, the budget will be presented in the lower house of Parliament. The finance minister briefings the cabinet before delivering the budget with a 'summary for the cabinet.' The finance minister reads a 'Budget Speech' in the Lok Sabha on the day the budget is presented.

The budget speech summarises the main themes of the entire budget, including major estimates and recommendations that might stretch into thousands of pages. Following the minister's speech, the budget is tabled in Parliament, and a copy of the budget is tabled in the Rajya Sabha shortly after its presentation in the Lok Sabha.

Amid India's third wave of Covid-19 epidemic, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will give the Budget 2022-23 in a paperless style, as she did last year. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Finance Ministry likewise abandoned the traditional 'Halwa' ceremonial. Once the budget presentation procedure is finished, the Union Budget 2022-23 will be available on the Mobile App.

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