Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday participated in a traditional 'halwa' ceremony, marking the final stage for preparation of the Interim Budget 2024 to be unveiled on Feb. 1 in the Lok Sabha.
The ceremony is an annual ritual in which the traditional dessert 'halwa' is prepared and served to officials and staff members of the finance ministry who are involved in the preparation of the Budget.
It is organised every year in the basement of North Block, which houses the ministry in the national capital and is attended by the finance minister and other high-ranking officials.
A customary Halwa ceremony is performed every year before the 'lock-in' process of Budget preparation begins, an official statement said.
As part of the ceremony, the finance minister also took a round of the Budget Press and reviewed the preparations besides extending her best wishes to the officials concerned.
Like the previous three full Union Budgets, Interim Union Budget 2024 will also be delivered in paperless form, it said, adding that the Interim Union Budget 2024 is to be presented on Feb. 1, 2024.
All the Union Budget documents, including the Annual Financial Statement (commonly known as Budget), Demand for Grants (DG), Finance Bill etc. as prescribed by the Constitution, will be available on the 'Union Budget Mobile App' for hassle-free access to Budget documents by Members of Parliament and the general public, the finance ministry said in a statement.
The app is bilingual (English & Hindi) and will be available on both Android and iOS platforms. It can also be downloaded from the Union Budget Web Portal www.indiabudget.gov.in, it said.
The Budget documents will be available on the app after the finance minister completes the Budget speech in Parliament on Feb. 1, 2024, it added.
Besides Sitharaman, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad and other senior officials, including Finance Secretary T V Somanathan, Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth, DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi and Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra, were present at the ceremony.
Chief Economic Advisor Anantha V Nageswaran, Central Board for Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta, Central Board for Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Additional Secretary (Budget) Ashish Vachhani and other officers and finance ministry staff, involved in the Budget preparation and compilation process, were also present on the occasion.
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