Union budget speeches: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.
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Finance Ministers (who presented Budgets)
1947-2014
See the graphics, Leaders who decided our fiscal destiny, 1947-1982 and Leaders who decided our fiscal destiny, 1982-2005
In 67 years of Independence, 22 men and a woman laid out our fiscal destiny through 83 budget speeches. But some did it more than others. So who had the maximum say over the way we lived, worked and played?
Indpaedia’s note: Mr Arun Jaitley assumed charge as Finance Minister in mid-2015 and had, till Feb 2017, presented the 2016 and 2017 budgets, taking the total to 23 men and a woman.
Key words in Union budgets, 1947-
‘Women’
January 26, 2018:The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
The mention of 'women' as a word has been sparse in budget speeches over the years. The ghastly Nirbhaya gangrape case changed this trend in the 2013-14 budget. However, the initiatives launched in that budget have failed to take off
Beyond the obvious of economics and number crunching, the Union Budget is a good platform for the government to showcase its focus areas. The mention of the word 'women' in budget speeches since independence is a wonderful case study on the same. Women, as a word, was never really used in budget speeches until in 2008-09, when the then finance minister P Chidambaram mentioned it nine times. But for now, let us fast forward to December 16, 2012 -- when the ghastly Nirbhaya gang rape in Delhi's Munirka shook the nation.
A couple of months later, as Chidambaram, in his second stint as finance minister, read out the 2013-14 budget, the issue was still resonating and he mentioned 'women' as many as 24 times. Citing 'a collective responsibility to ensure the dignity and safety of women', he set up the 'Nirbhaya Fund', allocating Rs 1,000 crore. The Modi government too, since taking over in 2014, has been allocating an equal amount of sum in each budget. However, the apathy lies in the fact that neither of the governments have been able to actually spend the money. In fact, the schemes that the governments devised to use the fund, failed to even take off.
The sad state of affairs is not just confined to the 'Nirbhaya Fund'. In the same 2013-14 budget, the government proposed setting up of, in Chidambaram's words, 'India's first Women's Bank as a public sector bank'. The Bharatiya Mahila Bank- as it was christened, received an initial capital of Rs 1,000 crore and was inaugurated in November 2013 by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the occasion of Indira Gandhi's birth anniversary. At its inception, the first CMD (Chairman and Managing Director) of the bank Usha Ananthasubramanian had said that the bank will emphasise on funding for women's skill development. The bank however failed to make much of a dent in the market as analysts suggested that other banks came up with the same model within their own business space. The fledgling state of the bank's fortune meant that the Modi government decided to merge it with the State Bank of India (SBI) last year.
Words that indicated shifting priorities, 1947-2017
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The Times of India
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The Times of India
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The Times of India
The Times of India
See four graphics. The first three are captioned
The frequency of key words used in Budget speeches (1947-2016) that reveal shifting priorities in economic policy and the fourth
Words used most frequently by Arun Jaitley in his Budget speeches of 2016 and 2017
Prime Minister’s speech
2018: a first
February 2, 2018: The Times of India
February 1, 2018 saw two Budget speeches being delivered. Just after the finance minister had finished speaking in Lok Sabha, PM Narendra Modi delivered a speech on TV to outline the benefits and the vision of the Budget, an exercise that looked like the sounding of the poll bugle.
Unlike the customary post-Budget remarks of his predecessors as well as his own on the last three occasions, the PM spoke for a good 25 minutes, this time detailing provisions of the Budget: an effort which while underlining his imprint on the exercise also reinforced speculation that the government from now on would be in full poll mode with the budget as one of the battle cries. “This Budget strengthens the foundation stone of ‘New India’ with a focus on agriculture to infrastructure. It covers aspects such as health plans for the poor and middle class and it has plans to increase the wealth of small entrepreneurs,” Modi said.
Modi said the emphasis of his government’s last full-year Budget ran from food processing and fibre optics to road and shipping and from rural India to ‘Ayushman India’ and Digital India to Startup India while also addressing the concerns of the youth, senior citizens and women.
The PM invoked the aspirational element of the Budget and promised to boost growth and jobs. “Ease of doing business as well as ease of living are in focus in this Budget. More savings for the middle class, new generation infrastructure for 21st century India and better health assurance — all are concrete steps towards ease of living,” Modi said. Like the FM Modi, too, made a detailed mention about how the Budget was farmer-friendly.
“I appreciate the decision to provide for one-and-a-half times’ remunerative price for the cost incurred by farmers. The Centre will put in place a sound system in consultation with states to ensure that farmers can avail the full benefits of this decision,” he said.
