Budget 2025: From documents leak to Black Budget, here are 8 unique facts you must know

Budget 2025: The purpose of a Union Budget goes beyond highlighting the revenue and expenditures incurred in a financial year. The budget document highlights India's evolving priorities, challenges, and ambitions. Hence, Budget Day is one of the most important days in the year when the government reflects on policies and key measures to promote the growth of the Indian economy.

Over the years, it has seen several changes, including groundbreaking reforms. Here are 8 facts that highlight the unique journey of the budget over the years.

• Budget leak: Before the budget presentation by the Finance Minister in the Parliament, all the budget-related documents are secretly kept in North Block with stringent security measures. However, a portion of the 1950 budget was leaked from the Rashtrapati Bhavan press in Delhi. Finance Minister John Mathai, who presented the budget that year, resigned later over the leak.
• Finance ministers who did not present budget: Conventionally, the finance minister presents the Union Budget in Parliament. However, not all finance ministers in the history of independent India had a chance to present the budget. Till date, two finance ministers, HN Bahguna and KC Neogy, have not delivered the budget speech as they held their offices for a very short duration. HN Bahuguna held the office for merely five and a half months in 1979-80, while KC Neogy, who was the second finance minister of India, served for 35 days in the office

• Black budget: The Union budget presented by Yashwantrao B Chavan during the fiscal year 1973-74 is referred to as the Black Budget. The fiscal deficit that year stood at ₹550 crore, which was a major challenge for the Indian economy. Hence it was called the Black Budget.
• Railway budget: A separate Railway budget was presented in the Parliament in 1924 after the recommendations of the Acworth Committee. Following India’s independence, John Mathai, the first Railway Minister, presented the first Railway Budget in 1947. However, the Ministry of Railways announced the merger of the Railway Budget with the General Budget in November 2016, following the recommendations of the Niti Aayog Committee headed by Bibek Debroy.

• Paperless budget: The documents were carried in a briefcase till 2019, which was replaced by an Indian ledger of accounts called ‘Bahi Khata’. In the Union Budget presented in the fiscal year 2021-22, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman replaced ‘Bahi Khata’ with a digital tablet enclosed in a red pouch, a move towards paperless budget presentation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Millenium Budget: The Union Budget presented by Yashwant Sinha in 2000 is called the Millenium Budget as it included several incentives for the growing IT sector, including benefits on software exports and custom duties on various items.

• 1991 Reforms Budget: On July 24, 1991, the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh gave a historic budget speech that opened India’s doors to the global economy. Singh introduced various economic reforms aimed to boost domestic growth, marking the end of License Raj at a time when the country was battling a severe balance of payments crisis.
• Dream Budget: The 1997 budget presented by then Finance Minister P Chidambaram is called the Dream Budget, as it slashed personal income tax rates and rationalised corporate income taxes.