New Delhi. The traditional Halwa ceremony, considered to be the last stage of finalizing the budget document, took place on Tuesday. With this, the work of finalizing the budget document for the financial year 2024-25 has begun. The budget will be presented in the Lok Sabha on July 23. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attended the ceremony and distributed halwa as per tradition.
This is an annual ceremony in which halwa is prepared and served to the officials and employees of the Finance Ministry who are involved in the preparation of the budget. This ceremony is held in the basement of North Block in Delhi. The printing press is also located in the Finance Ministry North Block. The Finance Minister and other high-ranking officials attended it.
The Finance Ministry wrote on Twitter, “The final phase of the budget preparation process for the Union Budget 2024-25 began here with the traditional Halwa ceremony in the presence of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.” During this, the Finance Minister also visited the Budget Press and reviewed the preparations besides wishing the concerned officials.
Like the last three full Union Budgets and the interim Budget, the Budget for 2024-25 will also be paperless i.e. in digital form.
All the Union Budget documents including the Annual Financial Statement (known as the Budget), Demands for Grants, Finance Bill etc will be available on the ‘Union Budget Mobile App’.
Apart from Sitharaman, other senior officials including Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Finance Secretary T V Somanathan, Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth and Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi were present at the ceremony. Actually, the ‘Halwa’ ceremony is a process of ‘isolating’ the officials and employees of the Finance Ministry involved in the preparation of the Central Government’s budget. That is, they are completely isolated from the outside world. These officers and employees stay in the ‘basement’ of North Block till the budget is presented in Parliament. Where complete secrecy is maintained. They come out only after the Finance Minister completes his budget speech in the Lok Sabha.