JOIN USBudget 2021 | Length of Budget speeches over the years
The Budget presentation speech by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2020 broke all records making the 163-minute speech the longest Budget speech in India's history in terms of duration.
Last year's Budget speech went for 2 hours 43 minutes, comprising of 13,128 words. Sitharaman broke her own record from her first Budget speech in 2019, which was two hours and 17 minutes long.
The eighth Union Budget under the Modi government for FY2021-22 is scheduled to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2021, in the Parliament.
This would be Sitharaman's third Budget speech. When asked about the length of her speech this time, the Finance Minister told PTI that she would rather be remembered for presenting the "longest prepared budget" than for "longest speech" on it.
This year's budget has been prepared between July last year and February this year, with inputs from stakeholders, including various ministries, the FM said.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was finance minister in 1991, gave a landmark Budget speech which was the longest in terms of words. It had 18,650 words. Since then, 28 budgets (excluding interim ones) have been reportedly presented by six finance ministers: Manmohan Singh (1991-1996), Yashwant Sinha (1998-2003), Jaswant Singh (2003-2004), P. Chidambaram (1996-1998, 2004-2009, 2013-2014), Pranab Mukherjee (2009-2013), and Arun Jaitley (2014-2019).
Former Finance Minister late Arun Jaitley came close to Singh’s 1991 speech record of 18,650 words in his 2014-15 speech at 16,552 words.
However, he holds the record for the second-longest Budget speech comprising 18,604 words delivered for his speech in 2018. He also holds the record for the third, fourth and fifth longest speeches made in 2014, 2017 and 2016 respectively.
The average post-1990 budget speech, according to reports, has been roughly 13,600 words.
Sitharaman’s first speech duration was longer than former finance minister Jaswant Singh’s 2003 speech by only four minutes.
The shortest Budget speech comprised of 800 words by HM Patel in 1977. The speech was made while delivering the interim budget.