Piyush Goyal reaches Parliament, flashes briefcase

New Delhi [India], Feb 1 (ANI): Finance Minister Piyush Goyal arrived at Parliament on Friday morning, ahead of the presentation of the Interim Budget for 2019-20 fiscal.
Finance Minister Goyal flashed the briefcase containing the copy of his budget speech and other budget-related relevant papers before entering Parliament.
The budget briefcase carries a huge weight of the country’s future and economic progress. It is a century-old tradition successfully followed by the Indian government.
The tradition of posing the briefcase before the budget speech started with Independent India’s first ever budget presented by then Finance Minister RK Shanmukham Chetty on November 26, 1947.
Friday’s interim budget is Prime Minister Narendra Modi led NDA government’s sixth and last financial exercise, which will seek Parliament’s nod for spending for six months of the new financial year till the formation of the new government at the Centre.
The new Central government, likely to get elected after the General elections by May, is expected to present a full-fledged budget in July, which will be preceded by the tabling of Economic Survey.
As per the standard practice, a vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in an election year and a full-fledged budget is presented by the new government. If the budget date falls few months ahead of polls, then an Interim Budget is presented.
Finance Minister Goyal, who examined the final copy of the document on Thursday evening here, will present the budget in the Lok Sabha at 11 am. He is also expected to address the media around 3.30 pm. (ANI)