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New Delhi:Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is going to present her ninth consecutive Union Budget on Sunday, February 1, 2026. This will be a special occasion in Indian parliamentary history, because for the first time in independent India, the budget will be presented on Sunday. This budget, which will begin in the Lok Sabha at 11 am, will decide the direction of the government’s economic strategy, spending plans and tax policies for the financial year 2026-27 (April 2026 to March 2027).

What are the expectations from the budget?

This budget is expected to give a strong impetus to the economy, maintain fiscal balance and deal with increasing trade tensions globally. In particular, strategic steps can be taken to reduce the impact of high tariffs (in some cases up to 50%) imposed by the US on Indian products.

In the last few budgets, the government took decisions like relief in income tax slabs, simplification of GST system and huge investment in infrastructure, due to which the economy faced the challenges. The Reserve Bank’s reduction in interest rates also helped. Now even in the budget of 2026, capital expenditure (capex) is likely to remain the strongest base.

Like previous years, investment may increase in sectors like roads, railways, defense sector, renewable energy, power transmission and urban transport. However, compared to the post-pandemic boom, this time the growth may be a little restrained. The tradition of supporting the infrastructure of states by giving them interest-free loans is also expected to continue.

Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech

Nirmala Sitharaman’s name is recorded for the longest budget speech in the history of the Indian Parliament. In the year 2020, his speech lasted for 2 hours 42 minutes, in which he announced major reforms like the new income tax system and LIC’s IPO. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla read the remaining part as he fell ill during the speech. Earlier in 2019, his speech was of 2 hours 17 minutes. The interim budget speech of 2024 was only 56 minutes long, which was the shortest during his tenure.

shortest budget speech

Former Finance Minister Hirubhai M. Patel had given it in the interim budget of 1977-78, which was only 800 words. The longest speech in terms of number of words was that of Manmohan Singh in 1991 (18,650 words), while Arun Jaitley’s speech in 2018 was the second longest at 18,604 words.

Sitharaman is now creating history with the ninth budget. This is his journey to become the Finance Minister who presented the highest budget consecutively. It is expected that this budget will strike a balance between development, employment and global challenges, so that India can move forward strongly.