New Delhi: The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Saturday approved the Budget for the year 2020-21 ahead of its presentation in the Parliament.
The Cabinet meeting was held after Sitharaman, who carried a ‘Bahi-Khata’, met President Ram Nath Kovind, accompanied by MoS Finance Anurag Thakur and other officials from her ministry.
She also visited the Ministry of Finance in the North Block.
Sitharaman will present the Budget in Parliament at 11 am today.
Ahead of the presentation, printed copies of the Budget were brought to the Parliament.
The duration of the Budget speech usually ranges from 90 to 120 minutes.
On the first day of the Budget Session of Parliament, Sitharaman on Friday tabled the pre-budget Economic Survey for 2019-20, which projected the state of the economy and outlined its challenges.
The word ‘budget’ has its origin in the French word Bougette, which means leather briefcase. Traditionally, budget documents — which primarily include papers related to revenue receipt and expenditure as well as the speech of finance minister — were carried in a brown briefcase, a legacy passed on by the British.
However, traditional Indian businessmen used Bahi-Khata to maintain their books of account. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to rebound and grow at a rate of 6 to 6.5 per cent in the next financial year 2020-21, according to the Economic Survey laid in Parliament on Friday.