Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2026 in the Lok Sabha on Sunday, delivering an 85-minute speech from 11 am to 12:25 pm. This marked her ninth consecutive Budget presentation, equalling former finance minister P. Chidambaram’s record for the most Union Budgets presented. The annual Finance Bill was tabled in Parliament immediately after her address.
Sitharaman’s Budget speeches over the years have varied widely in length. Her longest address came in 2020, when she spoke for 2 hours and 42 minutes, making it the longest Budget speech in India’s parliamentary history.
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That year’s Budget introduced the new income tax regime and outlined plans for the Life Insurance Corporation’s proposed public listing. Midway through the speech, Sitharaman felt unwell, and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla read out the concluding portion.
In her first Budget in 2019, Sitharaman spoke for 2 hours and 17 minutes, setting an early benchmark for lengthy presentations. The 2021 Budget speech ran for 1 hour and 50 minutes, followed by a 1 hour 30-minute address in 2022. In 2023, her speech lasted 1 hour and 27 minutes.
By contrast, the interim Budget of 2024 was her shortest, lasting just under an hour. The 2025 Budget speech ran for 1 hour and 14 minutes, while the 2026 address settled at 1 hour and 25 minutes, striking a middle ground between detail and brevity.
Budget 2026 highlights and economic backdrop
In Budget 2026, Sitharaman said that the priorities of the budget are to accelerate economic growth, build human capacity, and enhance access to opportunities.
The major announcements made in the budget were the allocation of ₹10,000 crore for the Biopharma SHAKTI initiative, increased public capital expenditure of ₹12.2 lakh crore, new semiconductor initiatives, high-speed rail corridors, and an extension of the deadline for the revision of income tax returns.
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These comments were made in the backdrop of increased volatility in the Indian currency, with the rupee hitting a record low of 92 against the US dollar. The Economic Survey, written by Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran, stated that the rupee’s weakness was being driven by global uncertainties and pressures on capital flows and not by domestic factors.
The Reserve Bank of India has clarified that it does not target any exchange rate level and makes interventions only to reduce excessive volatility.
