Union Budget 2024: Was today's Budget speech Nirmala Sitharaman’s shortest? Check out her longest to shortest speech in Budget history

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget in Parliament on Tuesday for the seventh consecutive year. Her speech lasted 86 minutes, which is much shorter than her record 160-minute speech in 2020.

In the 2020 Union Budget, Nirmala Sitharaman spoke for a record 2 hours and 40 minutes. In 2019, her first year as finance minister, her speech lasted 2 hours and 17 minutes.

Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech for the 2024 Union Budget was her briefest to date, lasting 86 minutes. In previous years, she took 1 hour and 50 minutes in 2021, 1 hour and 32 minutes in 2022, and 1 hour and 27 minutes in 2023.

According to Deccan Herald, Nirmala Sitharaman's inaugural 2019 Budget speech was 10,965 words long. In contrast, her 2024 Budget speech was nearly half that length at 5,271 words. Her lengthy February 2020 speech, which set a record at over 2 hours and 40 minutes, had to be shortened by two pages.

In her seventh consecutive Budget presentation and the first in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third term, Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned the concept of ‘Vikshit Bharat’. She said that this vision would lead India towards robust development and widespread prosperity.

The Union Budget 2024 highlighted nine key areas: improving agriculture, creating jobs and skills, advancing education and social justice, boosting manufacturing and services, developing cities, ensuring energy security, upgrading infrastructure, promoting innovation and research, and implementing next-generation reforms.

The Finance Minister will present a separate budget for Jammu and Kashmir later, as Parliament was adjourned after her speech.