Finance Minister Sitharaman Chairs Pre-Budget Talks With State, Union Territory Counterparts

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired a pre-Budget meeting in Delhi on Tuesday, gathering finance ministers from states and Union Territories to discuss important budgetary priorities, economic challenges, and policy measures for the Union Budget 2025-26.

The meeting aimed to gather inputs ahead of the annual Budget presentation. The Budget Session of Parliament will start on Jan. 28 and continue till April 2.

Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2026-27 on an unorthodox day of the week, being Sunday, Feb. 01, 2026. The Union Budget is set to be presented on a Sunday for the first time in decades.

The Economic Survey will be tabled on Jan. 20, before the budget is presented. In a post on social media platform 'X', Kiren Rijiju said the session has received approved from President Droupadi Murmu on the Union government's recommendation.

Along with Union Minister for State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary,the meeting was also attended by Governor of Manipur; Chief Ministers of Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, and Sikkim; Deputy Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana; the Finance Ministers of States/UTs, besides Secretaries of Departments of Economic Affairs, Expenditure, and Revenue, and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance, the Finance Ministry said in an 'X' post.

The first part of the budget session of Parliament will be held between Jan. 28 and Feb.13, whereas the second part of the session is set to be conducted between March 9 and April 2.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be presenting her nineth consecutive Union Budget, which is also set to be the 88th Budget since Independence. The government has followed the practice of presenting the Union Budget at 11 am on Feb. 1 since 2017, after shifting it from the initial tradition of Feb. 28.

The shift was first put in place during the tenure of former finance minister Arun Jaitley, while keeping the goal of ensuring quicker implementation of budgetary proposals from the start of the new financial year in mind.