Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her seventh consecutive Union Budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 today, where she spoke for 1 hour and 25 minutes.
Nirmala Sitharaman’s last speech was during the interim budget on February 1, 2024, where she spoke for just over 58 minutes.
In 2020, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set a new record for the longest budget speech in Indian history, spanning 2 hours and 42 minutes. This speech surpassed her previous record of 2 hours and 17 minutes set in 2019. In terms of length, the longest budget speech was given in 1991 by Dr Manmohan Singh, who served as the Finance Minister in Narasimha Rao’s Cabinet. The speech totalled 18,650 words.
Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speeches have varied in duration over the years. In the fiscal year 2024-25, her budget speech lasted 1 hour and 25 minutes, while her interim budget address on February 1, 2024, was notably shorter at 58 minutes. The 2023 budget extended for 1 hour and 30 minutes, and in 2021, she delivered India’s first paperless budget, which spanned 1 hour and 40 minutes. Her 2020 budget speech set a record as India’s longest, lasting 2 hours and 42 minutes, surpassing her inaugural budget speech in 2019, which lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel, who served as Finance Minister in Morarji Desai’s cabinet in 1977, delivered the shortest Budget presentation in Indian history, a speech of only 800 words.
