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What was the first budget of free India like?

On the eve of NDA government's first full-fledged budget under the auspices of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, dna takes a look at the first budget of free India under the then finance minister R K Shanmukham Chetty.

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The famed briefcase seen in the hands of finance ministers of India as they enter the Parliament to announce their annual budget.
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The Union Budget of 2015 is said to be the most important budget in the history of India even surpassing the momentous 1991  budget of then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh that ushered in liberalisation and go rid of the 'Hindu rate of growth'. 

The iconic pictures of finance ministers carrying their briefcases with the budget document which is prepared with utmost care and secrecy. The fact that the government employees part of making the yearly budget are sanitised from the outside world a week  before the budget is tabled in the parliament adds to the hysteria surrounding the Budget. 

On the eve of NDA government's first full-fledged budget under the auspices of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, dna takes a look at the first budget of free India under the then finance minister R K Shanmukham Chetty. 

But there is something common between the first budget of free India which was presented by Chetty in November 1947 and the budget that Arun Jaitley presented in 2014. Both were interim budgets. However, the one that Chetty presented in 1947, wasn't called an interim budget even though it was announced just three months before the Union Budget of 1948. 

The high point of this budget was that it completely omitted any tax proposals. A quick analysis of Chetty's budget show that he used the term 'tax' only 11 times as against 108 times by Arun Jaitley during the interim budget of 2014. 

Chetty's budget speech was just over 10,000 words while Jaitley's last year's speech was a tiresome 16,500 word long. 

But why did Chetty present a budget statement in November when the Union Budget was just three months away in February? "With the division of the country and the emergence of two independent Governments in place of the old Central Government, the Budget for the current year 1947-48 passed by the Legislature last March ceased to be operative," he had said. 

He added, "There is nothing spectacular about my statement and there will be no surprises associated with a Budget." Imagine the impact on the stock markets if any current day finance minister say something to this effect. 

Although, his budget concentrated mostly on the issues arising out of division of India, he provided for an estimated revenue of Rs 171.15 crore and revenue expenditure of Rs 197.39 crore. Fiscal deficit has been a serious bone of contention, Chetty said, "This is the eighth consecutive deficit budget and the House may well ask itself if our revenue position is sound. I have myself no hesitation in answering that question with an emphatic ‘yes’."

On the borrowing he announced a borrowing of Rs. 150 crores. 

Read the full budget speech here

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