Union Budget 2021: Time, Date And Other Key Details On The Session

In less than 15 days, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to present the Union Budget for the financial year 2021-22 at the Parliament.

• Budget session of the Parliament will commence on 29 January 2020. President Ram Nath Kovind will address both Houses of Parliament (Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha) at 11 am on 29 January.
• Budget will be presented by FM Sitharaman to the Parliament at 11 am on 1 February 2020.
• The parliamentary session for the Budget will be held in two parts: 29 January to 15 February and 8 March to 8 April.
• The 5th session of the 17th Lok Sabha will have 35 sittings: 11 in the first part and 24 in the second part.
• Parliament will adjourn on 15 February to enable various Standing Committees to consider the Demands for Grants of Ministries/Departments and prepare their reports, and reconvene on 8 March.

A major change in this year is that the Union Budget 2021 will be completely paperless exercise, that is, for the first time ever, India's annual budget papers will not be printed. This is being done in view of COVID-19.

Further, the Finance Ministry is set to announce a post-contraction budget, which will be a challenging task considering the fact that boosting economic growth will be the prime objective of this year's budget. Sitharaman has said that 2021's budget will be like "never before", signalling that the ministry may have lined up big announcements.

Job creation and revival of stressed sectors of the economy will most likely be priorities post-COVID-19. There are also expectations of farmer-friendly announcements which include increasing the current annual installment of Rs 6,000 given annually to farmers eligible under the Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme.