People watch the stay price range speech telecast from Parliament House, as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the Union Budget 2024 on February 01, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 introduced her sixth consecutive Budget with a speech lasting 56 minutes, her shortest-ever.
Dressed in a turquoise-coloured embroidered Kantha silk saree, as Ms. Sitharaman delivered her speech, it was lauded at common intervals by the treasury benches — her remarks on the presentation of the complete price range by “our government” in July receiving the loudest cheer.
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The opposition members listened to Ms. Sitharaman’s price range speech with rapt consideration, barring some voices of disapproval to the Minister’s reference to her authorities returning to energy after the Lok Sabha elections.
Earlier, BJP members raised slogans of Bharat Mata ki Jai, Jai Shri Ram, Jai Siya Ram as Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the Lok Sabha chamber and took his seat a couple of minutes earlier than 11:00 a.m.
At 56 minutes, it was Ms. Sitharaman’s shortest price range speech. She additionally holds the excellence of delivering the longest price range speech at two hours and forty minutes in 2020.
In 2019, as India’s first full-time girl Finance Minister, Ms. Sitharaman’s price range speech had lasted for 2 hours and 17 minutes. In 2021, her speech lasted for one hour and 50 minutes, adopted by 92 minutes in 2022 and 87 minutes in 2023.
Ms. Sitharaman’s price range speech discovered no point out of Tamil poets and thinkers not like earlier events, however she referred to Prime Minister Modi no less than eight instances and quoted from his speeches.
The public galleries noticed skinny attendance with a couple of Rajya Sabha members occupying seats in Gallery 2, whereas family of Finance Minister Sitharaman — Krishnamurthy Lakshminarayan and Vidya Lakshminarayan — and her daughter Vangmayi Parakala had been seated within the first row of Gallery 3.
Ms. Sitharaman, Ministers of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Bhagwat Karad, and high officers from the Finance Ministry known as on President Droupadi Murmu earlier than presenting the Budget.
The President gave Ms. Sitharaman a spoonful of curd and sugar and prolonged her greatest needs for the presentation of the Union Budget.
In her price range speech, Ms. Sitharaman coined new growth of FDI – First, Develop India and for GDP – Governance, Development and Performance.
Also Read: Govt to take up next-generation reforms to facilitate growth: Sitharaman
“Besides delivering on high growth in terms of Gross Domestic Product, the government is equally focused on a more comprehensive ‘GDP’, i.e., ‘Governance, Development and Performance’,” Ms. Sitharaman mentioned.
In 2019, Finance Minister Sitharaman did away with the standard Budget briefcase and as an alternative went for a ‘bahi-khata’ with the nationwide emblem to hold the speech and different paperwork on a pill pc, a practice she caught to on February 1.
JD(U) chief Rajiv Ranjan ‘Lalan’ Singh, whose social gathering re-joined the NDA final week, was seen applauding the price range speech on common events.
The Prime Minister walked as much as Ms. Sitharaman on the conclusion of her speech and congratulated her for the presentation of the interim price range.
Several Ministers had been additionally seen congratulating Ms. Sitharaman after her speech.