Union Budget 2024: Why was Budget date changed to February 1?
Hindustan TimesUnion Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be presenting the interim Union Budget 2024 for the coming fiscal year on February 1. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman The interim Budget 2024 will not include any major policy changes and the Union Budget 2024 will only be presented after a new government is formed after the general elections in the country in April-May 2024. On February 1, 2017, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced that the Union Budget would be presented on the first day of February from now on, and not on the last working day of the month, as it was done in the colonial era. In 1999 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA government, Finance Minister Yashwant Singh had proposed that the Union Budget should be presented at 11 am instead of 5 pm, giving Parliament MPs a time for a greater discussion and debate regarding the same.