Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday again carried a digital tablet wrapped in a traditional ‘bahi-khata’ style pouch and headed to Parliament to present the full budget for 2024-25 in a paperless format, just like in previous years. Dressed in a white silk sari with a magenta border, she posed for the traditional ‘briefcase’ photo outside her office with her team of officials before going to meet the President. The tablet is carefully placed inside a red cover (red pouch) instead of a briefcase, on which the golden coloured national emblem is embossed.
July 2019 Briefcase culture was over
Sitharaman, India’s first full-time woman finance minister, had ditched the colonial legacy of the budget briefcase for the traditional ‘bahi-khata’ to carry Union Budget papers in July 2019. She did the same the following year and in the pandemic-hit 2021, she used a digital tablet instead of traditional paper to carry her speech and other budget documents. The tradition continued on Tuesday as well.
Sitharaman’s seventh consecutive budget
The finance minister used a red cloth folder with a lanyard attached and the national emblem inscribed on it to carry the budget documents. In February this year, she presented another interim budget. The 2024-25 budget is Sitharaman’s seventh consecutive budget, a record. Earlier, finance ministers in various governments, including her predecessors in the Modi government Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal, used the standard budget briefcase.
The colonial tradition was broken during the Vajpayee government
Before Sitharaman, a long-standing colonial tradition regarding budget presentation was broken during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government when then finance minister Yashwant Sinha presented the budget at 11 am instead of the traditional time of 5 pm. Since then, all governments have been presenting the budget at 11 am. The tradition of carrying the budget briefcase was a British legacy. The word ‘budget’ originated from the French word ‘bouget’, which means a leather briefcase. The “budget case” tradition started in the 18th century when the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the budget head of Britain was asked to ‘open the budget’ while presenting his annual statement.
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