Budget 2024: As the nation heads towards a new year, citizens of the country are eagerly waiting for the Union Budget of 2024–25. Today, we bring you a blast from the past—a few iconic budgets of India from the archives!

The Black Budget

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India's Union Budget for 1973–74, presented by then finance minister Yashwantrao B Chavan, is widely known as the Black Budget. But why is it so?

It is because the country had a fiscal deficit of Rs 550 crore that year, meaning the government's revenue was estimated to be Rs 550 crore short of its expenditure. It was a time when India was going through acute financial distress.

Carrot & Stick Budget

The Union Budget presented on February 28, 1986, by VP Singh for the Congress government was the first step towards dismantling the licence raj in India. It was called the 'Carrot and Stick' budget as the budget offered both rewards and punishment. It introduced the MODVAT (Modified Value Added Tax) credit for lowering the cascading effect of tax that consumers had to pay while also launching an intense drive against smugglers, black marketers, and tax evaders.

Epochal Budget

Under the PV Narasimha Rao government that ended licence raj and began the era of economic liberalisation, Manmohan Singh's landmark 1991 budget is known as the 'Epochal Budget'. Presented at a time when India was on the brink of an economic collapse, it, among other things, slashed customs duty from 220 per cent to 150 per cent and took steps to promote exports.

Dream Budget

P. Chidambaram in the 1997–98 Budget used the Laffer Curve principle to lower tax rates to increase collections. He slashed the maximum marginal income tax rate for individuals from 40 per cent to 30 per cent and that for domestic companies to 35 per cent besides unleashing a number of major tax reforms, including a voluntary disclosure of income scheme to recover black money. Referred to as the 'Dream Budget', it also slashed customs duty to 40 per cent and simplified excise duty structure.

Millennium Budget

The 2000 Millennium Budget of Yashwant Sinha laid the road map for the growth of India's IT industry as it phased out incentives for software exporters and lowered customs duty on 21 items, such as computers and computer accessories.

Rollback Budget

Yashwant Sinha's 2002-03 Budget for the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-headed NDA government is popularly remembered as the Rollback Budget, as several proposals in it were withdrawn or rolled back.

Once-in-a-Century Budget

The Budget presented by Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2021, was called the 'once-in-a-century budget' as it looked to revive Asia's third-largest economy via investing in infrastructure and healthcare while relying on an aggressive privatisation strategy and robust tax collections.

(with PTI inputs)

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