Looking at the history of India’s budget and Finance Minister’s speech. Nirmala Sitharaman continues to hold the position of the longest-budget speech in the year 2020.
Longest Budget speeches in India
1. fm nirmala sitharaman: Sitharaman set her first record for the longest budget speech in 2019 after speaking for 2 hours and 17 minutes where she gave a 10-point vision for the upcoming decade, explaining the benefits for the MSME sector and startups, among other key topics.
Nirmala Sitharaman then broke her previous record in 2020 after speaking for 2 hours and 42 minutes while presenting the Union Budget, and this till date is considered as the longest budget speech in history.
2. FM Jaswant Singh: In 2003, the finance minister of India, Jaswant Singh, made his budget speech, clocking in at 2 hours and 13 minutes, where he talked about key topics like universal health insurance, e-filing of income tax returns, and reductions in excise and customs duty among other key things. Singh’s speech was considered as the longest before Sitharaman’s record in 2019.
3. FM Arun Jaitley: In 2014, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke for 3 hours and 10 minutes during his budget speech to the nation. This is where announced key moves like an increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) to 49 per cent in India’s defence sector and exemption of tax within the slab of ₹2 lakh to ₹2.5 lakh, among other things.
4. FM Manmohan Singh: In 1991, then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh still holds the record for the longest speech in words, with 18,700 words to his credit in the presentation. Arun Jaitley holds the second spot with a record of 18,604 words.
Shortest Budget speech
Finance Minister Hirubhai M. Patel gave the shortest budget speech in 1997, which was just 800 words; he presented the interim budget for the year.
On the interim Budget front, current Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also presented an interim Budget in 2024, which marked her shortest budget speech, taking only 60 minutes.
