Longest and shortest budget speeches in India's history

by Priyanka Deshpande

CNBC-TV18.com

Published July 23, 2024

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her seventh consecutive Budget speech on July 23,2024. The speech lasted for 1 hour and 25 minutes. Here’s a look at longest and shortest Budget speeches in Indian history:

Sitharaman set a record for delivering the longest Budget speech by duration, speaking for 2 hours and 42 minutes in 2020.

Nirmala Sitharaman 

Former finance minister Jaswant Singh delivered his 2003 Budget speech in 2 hours and 13 minutes.

Jaswant Singh

Former finance minister Arun Jaitley spoke for 2 hours and 10 minutes during his 2014 Budget speech.

Arun Jaitley

Manmohan Singh delivered the longest Budget speech by word count in 1991, with 18,650 words.

Manmohan Singh

Arun Jaitley's 2018 Budget speech, with 18,604 words, holds the record for the second longest by word count.

Arun Jaitley

The shortest Budget speech, consisting of 800 words, was delivered by finance minister Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel in 1977.

Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel