Union Budget 2023: India's past Finance Ministers and their Budgets; in pics

R.K. Shanmukham Chetty (1947-49) was the first Finance Minister of India from 1947 to 1948 who presented India's first budget in Nov 1947

Dr John Matthai (1886–1959) was an economist who served as India's first Railway Minister and subsequently as India's Finance Minister and presented India's budget in 1948

Chintaman Dwarkanath Deshmukh (1951-57), a member of the Indian Civil Service, was also the first Indian RBI Governor

Jawaharlal Nehru (1958-59) presented the Union Budget for the FY 1958-1959 and was the first Prime Minister to do so as the Union Budget is presented by the Finance Minister

Morarji R. Desai (1959-64, 1967-69) is the finance minister who presented 'the most number of budgets' (10 budgets) in the history of the country

T.T. Krishnamachari served as Finance Minister from 1956 to 1958 and from 1964 to 1966

Sachindra Choudhuri presented the budget for 1966-67 after the resignation of T.T Krishnamachari. It was an interim arrangement

Indira Gandhi (1969-70) was 'the first woman to present India's budget'

'Shortest budget speech' was delivered by the finance minister Hirubhai M. Patel in 1977

Pranab Mukherjee (1982-84, 2009-2012) was a powerful 'Minister of State for Revenue' during the Emergency and later, the finance minister in Indira Gandhi's Cabinet

Dr. Manmohan Singh (1991-96) delivered 'the longest budget speech' in terms of words in 1991 under the Narasimha Rao Government

P. Chidambaram (1996-98, 2004-08, 2012-2014) is known for his 1997 'dream budget' in the United Front Government

Arun Jaitley (2014-2019): In 2018, then finance minister Arun Jaitley's speech was the second longest in terms of word count

Nirmala Sitharaman (2019-present) holds the record for delivering the longest speech when she spoke for 2 hours and 42 minutes while presenting the Union Budget 2020-21. 5th budget in the Parliament on Feb 1, 2023 (Budget 2023) is being presented by her