New Delhi:
President Draupadi Murmu will address both houses of Parliament on Friday, with which the budget session will begin. After this, the Finance Minister will present the ‘Economic Survey’. Whereas on Saturday, the general budget will be presented. On Monday, 3 February, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will discuss the vote of thanks on the President’s address.
- President Draupadi Murmu will address a joint meeting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at 11 am on Friday. The budget session will be held in two phases from 31 January to 4 April.
- The first phase of the session will end on 13 February and the second phase will start from March 10. The session will end on April 4.
- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will set a record for presenting the 8th consecutive budget on February 1. It is expected that measures will be taken to support the weakening economic growth in the general budget and to provide relief to the middle class struggling with inflation and stable increment.
- Finance and Revenue Secretary Pandey, Ajay Seth, Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth, Expenditure Secretary Manoj Govil, Investment and Public Property Department (Deepam) Secretary Arunish Chawla, Financial Services Secretary M Nagaraju and Chief Economic Advisor V Anant Nageswaran.
- The most difficult task before the Finance Minister and his team will be to promote growth without leaving the fiscal restraint. The government is also expected to maintain the fiscal target to bring the fiscal deficit below 4.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in FY 2025-26 despite various challenges.
- The Finance Ministry has six departments – Revenue, Economic Affairs, Expenditure, Financial Services, Deepam and DPE. The most senior bureaucrat in the ministry is nominated as Finance Secretary.
- Finance and Revenue Secretary Pandey is associated with the budget making process from October 2019, when he joined Deepam as Secretary. He became the Finance Secretary in September last year.
- Ajay Seth, Secretary, Economic Affairs, is the second most senior officer in the Finance Ministry, who has held four budgets since 2021. The budget division under their department conducts the entire process of making budget. Expenditure Secretary Manoj Govil is an officer of the 1991 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) of Madhya Pradesh cadre and he took over the expenditure department in August 2024.
- Bihar cadre IAS officer Arunish Chawla took charge in December, 2024 in Deepam and DPE. He has obtained a Masters and Doctorate in Economics from London School of Economics.
- Financial Services Secretary M Nagaraju has the responsibility of increasing the FDI limit in the insurance sector, dealing with increasing cyber fraud and further reforms in banking sector health. Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anant Nagswaran will present his third economic review one day before the general budget 2025-26. Nagswaran was made a CEA by the government in January 2022.