1 / 9As the country waits eagerly for finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to unveil the Union Budget on February 1, here are a few interesting facts: (Image: Shutterstock)
2 / 9The word budget has French origins. It emerged from the old French term bougette meaning "small leather purse." (Image: Reuters)
3 / 9The first union budget in the country was presented way back in 1860 by Scottish economist James Wilson on behalf of the East India Company to the British crown.(Image: Reuters)
4 / 9The first budget of independent India was presented on November 26, 1947, by India’s first finance minister RK Shanukham Chetty. (Image: indianhistorypics Twitter page)
5 / 9Until 1955, the budget was only published in English. However, this changed in 1955-56 when the government started to publish it in both English and Hindi.
6 / 9While Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister to present the budget when he held the finance portfolio back in 1958-59. His daughter and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was the first woman to present the budget in India.(Image: Indian national Congress website)
7 / 9The former Finance Minister Morarji Desai holds the record for presenting the most number of budgets—a record 10—closely followed by P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
8 / 9Nirmala Sitharaman is the first full-time female finance minister to table the Union Budget.
9 / 9The record for delivering the longest budget speech is held by late Arun Jaitely. The former finance minister gave a 2.5 hours long budget speech in 2014. (Image: PTI Photo)
