FM to address RBI board on Feb 12, highlight key points of interim Budget

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to address the Reserve Bank of India's central board on February 12 and highlight key points of the interim Union Budget.

Sitharaman will present the sixth Budget on February 1, where she will outline the roadmap for 2024-25.

In the post-budget meeting, the finance minister will address the board members and talk about announcements made in the interim Budget 2024-25.

The meeting is being held shortly after the Budget session, as well as the last session of the 17th Lok Sabha, which comes to an end on February 9.

It is customary for the finance minister to address the Reserve Bank of India board after the Budget.

Before the finance minister's address, the RBI will unveil its last bi-monthly monetary policy review on February 8.

She will equal the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai when she presents her sixth straight Budget on February 1.

Sitharaman, the first full-time women finance minister of the country, has presented five full budgets since July 2019 and will present an interim or vote-on-account budget this week.

With the presentation of the interim Budget on February 1, she will surpass the records of her predecessors like Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had presented five budgets in a row.

Desai, as finance minister, had presented five annual Budgets and one interim Budget between 1959 and 1964.

The interim Budget 2024-25 will be a vote-on-account that will give the government authority to spend certain sums of money till a new government comes to office after the April-May general elections.

As the general elections are due, Sitharaman's interim Budget may not contain any major policy changes.