When and where to watch Nirmala Sitharaman's Union Budget Speech 2023

Other news channels will also likely cut to the Finance Minister’s speech.

The Budget speech usually lasts for about two hours but the durations have differed over the years.

Since 2020, the Budget has been presented in paperless format. This year too, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliver the Budget in paperless format.

A customary ‘Halwa’ ceremony was held on Thursday, January 26, to mark the final stage of the Budget preparation process. The Halwa ceremony is taking place five days before the Budget is presented.

It is organised every year at the Finance Ministry headquarters in the Secretariat building’s North Block basement in the national capital of New Delhi and attended by the finance minister and other high-ranking officials.

Celebrations are usually kicked off by the finance minister stirring a cauldron or kadhai full of halwa and then serving it to colleagues.

The Halwa ceremony is a tradition that has been carried out for decades in the basement of the North Block that also houses the special printing press, which printed the Budget documents from 1980 until 2020. Since 2020, the Budget has gone paperless.