Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fourth budget address which began at 11 am on Tuesday lasted only one hour 30 minutes. This year too, Sitharaman ditched the traditional ‘bahi khata’ and carried a tablet to deliver a paperless budget.
The budget address 2022 was expected to be around 90-120 minutes, given Sitharaman’s previous track records. In her maiden budget speech, Sitharaman delivered the address for about 2 hours and 15 minutes in 2019, which was then the longest speech in Indian history. In 2020, she outdid herself by delivering a speech that lasted for 162 minutes.
In 2021, when the government went paperless for the first time ever while presenting the Union Budget, Sitharaman delivered her shortest Budget speech- 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Former Finance Minister late Arun Jaitley’s 2018 Budget speech came rather close with 18,604 words that he delivered in 1 hour and 49 minutes. Jaitley’s speeches also hold the record on the third, fourth, and fifth spots for the longest Budget speeches.
Amid Covid restrictions, the two Houses of the Parliament will meet at separate times of the day. The first half of the Budget session will take place between February 2 and 11. Then, there will be a nearly a month-long recess till the second part of the session commences on March 14 and ends on April 8.
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