Union Budget 2023: Budget countdown begins with ‘Halwa Ceremony’, Nirmala Sitharaman present
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New Delhi : Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget for the financial year 2023-24 in the Lok Sabha on February 1. Earlier, the traditional ‘Halwa Ceremony’ was organized in the Parliament House on Thursday to mark the beginning of the compilation and printing of budget documents. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, Pankaj Chowdhary and other senior officials of the Ministry of Finance were present on the occasion. The Halwa Ceremony marks the final phase of the compilation of the Union Budget. During this, the Finance Minister starts the ceremony by stirring the pudding in the pan and then it is served among the employees of the Ministry of Finance in Delhi.
Lock-in after Halwa Ceremony
As per budgetary convention, the compilation and printing of each year’s budget documents reaches its final stage, before which the officials involved in budget making have to ‘lock-in’. Immediately after the Halwa Ceremony is held in the Ministry of Finance in the Parliament House complex, the officials involved in budget making are locked to maintain its secrecy. All of them stay locked in the North Block and come out only when the budget is presented in the Lok Sabha.
Halwa Ceremony was postponed last year
Due to the outbreak of Corona epidemic last year, the Halwa Ceremony, which was organized in the traditional way, was postponed in view of health and safety concerns. According to media reports, like the budgets of the last two years, this year’s Union Budget 2023 will also be paperless. With the Finance Minister’s speech in the Lok Sabha coming to an end on February 1, the Union Budget will be available through a mobile app on Android and Apple OS platforms.
The budget process started on October 10
According to media reports, the formal exercise to prepare the Union Budget for the financial year 2023-24 had started on October 10 last year itself. The Union Budget to be presented in the Parliament this year is the last full budget of the second term of the Modi government, as the general elections to the Lok Sabha are to be held in the year 2024. That’s why only an interim budget will be presented in the Parliament in 2024.
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