Sitharaman meets President ahead of record ninth Union Budget

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan on February 1, hours before presenting the Union Budget for 2026–27 in Parliament.

Sitharaman arrived carrying her now-familiar digital bahi-khata — a tablet wrapped in a red cloth bearing the national emblem — continuing a practice she adopted in recent years. The Budget will be her ninth in a row, bringing her on par with former finance minister P Chidambaram and ahead of Pranab Mukherjee. Former prime minister Morarji Desai remains the longest-serving budget presenter in independent India.

According to the Lok Sabha List of Business, the House will convene at 11 am. Sitharaman will place before Parliament the statement of estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for 2026–27. She will also table two mandatory statements under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 — the Medium-term Fiscal Policy-cum-Fiscal Policy Strategy Statement and the Macro-economic Framework Statement.

The finance minister will then seek leave to introduce the Finance Bill, 2026, and formally move it in the Lok Sabha. The Finance Bill gives statutory backing to the government’s taxation and expenditure proposals announced in the Budget.

The presentation follows the tabling of the Economic Survey for 2025–26 in Parliament on Thursday, a long-established pre-Budget exercise that reviews the economy’s performance over the past year and sets the context for fiscal decisions. Prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs under the Chief Economic Adviser, the Survey is released in two parts covering key macroeconomic trends and sectoral developments.

Citing the Survey, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said the First Advance Estimates project real GDP growth of 7.4 per cent in 2025–26, keeping India the fastest-growing major economy for the fourth straight year. He also pointed to retail inflation of 1.7 per cent during April–December 2025, attributing the moderation largely to lower food prices, particularly vegetables and pulses.

Goyal said the government’s manufacturing strategy has evolved from ‘Swadeshi’ to ‘strategic resilience’ and now ‘strategic indispensability’, aimed at building confidence in domestically produced goods.

The Budget session of Parliament will run for 65 days with 30 sittings, concluding on April 2. Both Houses will adjourn for a recess on February 13 and reconvene on March 9, allowing standing committees time to scrutinise the Demands for Grants of various ministries.