Union Budget's Journey: From 1860 to Paperless, Key Changes & Records Revealed

• India's first budget was presented on April 7, 1860, by James Wilson; independent India's first was on November 26, 1947, by R.K. Shanmukham Chetty.
• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman holds the record for the longest budget speech (2h 42m in 2020), while Hirubhai Muljibhai Patel gave the shortest (800 words in 1977).
• The budget presentation time changed from 5 PM to 11 AM in 1999 (Yashwant Sinha) and the date shifted to February 1st in 2017 (Arun Jaitley).
• Initially English-only, the budget began to be published in both Hindi and English after 1955; the 2021-22 budget was India's first entirely paperless budget.
• Indira Gandhi was the first female FM to present the budget in 1970-71; the 92-year-old separate Railway Budget tradition ended with its merger in 2017.

Why It Matters: India's Union Budget has a rich history, evolving significantly in presentation, language, and format since 1860.