The longest-serving Finance Minister in continuous office, Nirmala Sitharaman, presented her record ninth consecutive Union Budget on 1 February. Looking back, Morarji Desai had presented the Budget ten times, and P. Chidambaram nine times, but none of them had presented the Budget nine times consecutively. So far as Sitharaman’s Budget Speeches go, this was one of the shorter ones ~ she spoke only for 1 hour and 25 minutes, as against a record-breaking speech of 2 hours 39 minutes in 2020.

The FM’s address outlined the government’s fiscal roadmap for FY 2026–27, including spending plans, tax proposals, and key policy priorities. As expected, the Budget Speech and budget proposals were lauded by the PM, and the who’s who of the ruling party, but derided by opposition politicians. Since this was the first budget prepared in Kartavya Bhavan – the new address of the Finance Ministry – the FM drew inspiration from three kartavyas, the first being the acceleration and sustenance of economic growth, by enhancing productivity and competitiveness, and also building resilience to volatile global dynamics. An important part of this kartavya was the building of infrastructure, pursuant to which, Budget 2026 has raised the capital expenditure target to Rs 12.2 lakh crore from Rs 11.2 lakh crore for FY 25-26, which is slightly iffy, given the fact that the capital expenditure target of the current FY would remain unmet.

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The FM has lauded herself for restricting fiscal deficit for FY 25-26 to 4.4 per cent of GDP, as against a target of 4.5 per cent; here it is to be mentioned that this milestone was achieved because receipts and expenditure fell short by around Rs.1 lakh crores ~ which was the case last year also. In this perspective, the narrowing down of the fiscal deficit to 4.3 per cent of GDP in FY 26-27, may be at the cost of a shortfall in budgeted expenditure. Concerningly, there was a fall in revenue receipts for FY 25-26 ~ tax receipts estimated at Rs 28.37 lakh crores, fell short by Rs.1.63 lakh crores.

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Collection of Personal Income-tax missed the target by Rs.1.26 lakh crores, and collection of GST fell short by Rs.1.32 lakh crores ~ which was expected, given the reduction in tax rates. However, Personal Income-tax collections are set to exceed Corporate Tax collections by more than Rs.2 lakh........

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