Union budget 2026: The Central Government is presenting the country’s General Budget 2026 in the Parliament today, Sunday, February 1, at 11 am. For the last few years, it has become a tradition to present the budget on 1st February and in the same sequence, last year’s Union Budget 2025 was also tabled in the Parliament on the same date. This time’s budget is also special because Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presenting it for the ninth consecutive time. With this, she will join the list of select finance ministers who have presented the budget without any gap for the longest time, which is considered to be a record in itself. In this sequence, it is also important to know how many budgets have been presented on which days from Monday to Saturday after independence.

How many budgets on which day since independence?

The Union Budget 2026 is being presented in Parliament today, Sunday, February 1, at 11 am. This is the second time after independence that the country’s general budget is being presented on Sunday. Before this, most of the budgets were presented in Parliament between Monday and Saturday. If we look at the figures, till now the budget has been presented maximum 21 times on Monday, whereas the budget has been presented 11 times on Tuesday, 18 on Wednesday, 10 on Thursday, 17 on Friday and 17 on Saturday. Presenting the budget on a Sunday is still considered a rare occurrence.

Presenting budget on weekend is not a new tradition

Although presenting the budget on Sunday is a topic of discussion, the trend of presenting the budget on the weekend has been seen earlier also. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented Budget 2025 on Saturday. Before him, former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had also presented the budget on 28 February in the years 2015 and 2016 and both times that day was Saturday. It is clear from this that the budget deadline and preparation are more important than the day for the government.

Nirmala Sitharaman’s ninth consecutive budget

Budget 2026 is the ninth consecutive budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. With this, she will join those select finance ministers who have presented the budget the maximum number of times without any gap. In 2019, after the NDA government came back to power under the leadership of Narendra Modi, she was made the country’s first full-time woman Finance Minister. After this, even after the Modi government returns to power for the third time in 2024, the responsibility of the Finance Ministry remains with him.

GDP estimate becomes the foundation of the budget

The preparation of Union Budget 2026 is based on recently released economic data. According to the first advance estimate released by the government on January 7, despite global economic challenges and circumstances like tariff war, India’s real GDP growth is estimated to be 7.4 percent in the financial year 2025-26. This growth rate is higher than 6.5 percent a year ago, which shows the strength of the Indian economy.

Government’s priorities and way forward

Keeping these GDP estimates and other economic indicators in mind, the outline of Budget 2026 has been prepared. It is believed that in this budget, the government will clearly put forward the strategy to strengthen domestic demand, increase investment, create employment opportunities and deal with global instability. Budget 2026 is expected to provide the government’s economic priorities, policy direction and complete development roadmap for the coming financial year.

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Budget 2026: As soon as every new year begins, the eyes of the country focus on a special day. When the government presents the outline of its future economic plans before the entire country. The discussion regarding the general budget intensifies from common people to special people.

Every section of the union expects something or the other from the budget. This year also the budget will be presented on 1st February only. But amid all this, one thing often comes to people’s mind that why has the date of February 1st been fixed for the budget and what is the reason behind it?

tradition from the British era

The date of presenting the budget in the country has not always been 1 February. Before 2017, the Union Budget was presented in Parliament on the last day of February. This system was going on since the time of British rule.

Which was continued for a long time even after independence. The budget continued to be presented under this tradition for many decades. In 2017, the Modi government at the Center decided to make changes in this old system.

New arrangement to bring budget on 1st February

In the year 2017, the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had taken the initiative to change the date of the budget and it was shifted from the end of February to 1st February. The government behind this change believed that this would provide additional time to implement financial operations in a better way.

Since the new financial year starts from April 1, it used to take a lot of time to discuss and approve the earlier budget. The schemes were delayed if the budget was not received on time. Now, with the presentation of the budget on February 1, the government gets enough time to take necessary decisions and release funds.

Mutual fund investors hope for relief

Mutual fund investors have big expectations from the government from Budget 2026-27. While sending its recommendations to the Finance Ministry, AMFI, an organization of mutual fund companies, has laid special emphasis on increasing the savings of the middle class.

On behalf of the organization, a demand has been made to the Central Government to encourage retail investors for long term investment and provide tax relief. If the government implements these suggestions, small and medium investors can get direct benefits.

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