Budget 2023: Nirmala Sitharaman meets President ahead of Budget speech

PTI, Feb 1, 2023, 10:01 AM IST

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday called on President Droupadi Murmu before presenting the Union Budget 2023-24.

As per established tradition, the Finance Minister met the President at the Rashtrapati Bhawan before heading to Parliament.

”Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, MoS Dr Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, MoS Shri Pankaj Chaudhary and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan before presenting the Union Budget 2023-24,” Rashtrapati Bhawan tweeted.

The Union Cabinet met thereafter to clear the Budget.

Before the actual presentation, the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will approve the Budget for the fiscal year 2023-24 (April 2023 to March 2024).

While traditionally, copies of the Budget are brought to the Parliament complex before the Finance Minister arrives, this year no document has been printed following the COVID-19 protocol.

Instead, the Budget copies will be disseminated electronically, with documents being uploaded on the government website as well as being made available on a special app developed for the same.

Expectations are running high as Sitharaman presents her fifth budget in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. She has her task cut out to maintain the world’s fastest-growing economy tag for India while staying fiscally prudent and meeting general public expectations of lower taxes and a wider social security net.

Dressed in a red saree with black and golden border, Sitharaman continued with the tradition she set in 2019, carrying the budget speech in a ‘bahi-khata’, which she used after ditching the briefcase. She kept a digital tablet in a red bahi khata style pouch.

On the first day of the budget session of Parliament, Sitharaman on Tuesday tabled the pre-budget Economic Survey for 2022-23, which projected an 6-6.8 per cent growth for the economy in the coming financial year.

The economy is projected to expand by 7 per cent in the current fiscal year.