‘Halwa’ ceremony returns as preparations of Sitharaman’s 5th Budget enters final stage

New Delhi: The ‘halwa’ ceremony, an annual ritual that heralds the Union Budget, returned after a year’s break with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday stirring a ‘kadhai’ to mark the traditional event.

The ceremony is an annual ritual in which traditional dessert ‘halwa’ is prepared and served to officials and staff members of the finance ministry who were involved in the preparation of the Budget.

It is organised every year in the basement of North Block, which houses the ministry in the national capital, and is attended by the finance minister and other high-ranking officials.

The ceremony was curtailed last year in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and instead sweets were distributed to the core staff. This year, the customary ‘halwa’ ceremony, performed every year before the ‘lock-in’ process of Budget preparation begins, coincided with Republic Day.

Besides Sitharaman, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Bhagwat K Karad and other senior officials including Finance Secretary T V Somanathan, Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth, DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey, and Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra were present at the ceremony on Thursday, visuals of the event shared on the official twitter handle showed.

Chief Economic Advisor Anantha V. Nageswaran, Central Board for Direct taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta, Central Board for Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Vivek Johri, Additional Secretary (Budget) Ashish Vachhani and other officers and staff of Ministry of Finance, involved in the Budget preparation and compilation process, were also present on the occasion.

Sitharaman is scheduled to present on February 1 her fifth straight budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1. Like the previous two, Union Budget 2023-24 will also be delivered in paperless form.

All the 14 Union Budget documents, including the Annual Financial Statement (commonly known as Budget), Demand for Grants (DG), Finance Bill etc. as prescribed by the Constitution, will be available on the “Union Budget Mobile App” for hassle-free access of Budget documents by Members of Parliament and the general public, the finance ministry said in a statement.

The app is bilingual (English & Hindi) and will be available on both Android and iOS platforms. It can also be downloaded from the Union Budget Web Portal www.indiabudget.gov.in, it said.

The Budget documents will be available on the app after the completion of the Budget speech by the finance minister in Parliament on February 1, 2023, it added.

As part of the ‘halwa’ ceremony, the finance minister also took a tour of the Budget Press and reviewed the preparations besides extending her best wishes to the officials concerned.

What is ‘halwa’ ceremony? The ceremony is kind of a ‘send-off’ for finance ministry officials and staff involved with the preparation of the Union government’s annual financial statement.

They enter what is called a ‘lock-in’ period, during which they stay in the basement of North Block, cut off from the world outside with a view to maintaining the secrecy around the final budget

document.

They will emerge only after the finance minister completes her Budget speech in the Lok Sabha on February 1. It is considered a gesture of appreciation for those who have worked on the Budget.