Railway Budget 2018: The 92-year old custom of presenting Railway budget and general budget separately was eliminated by Modi government on 21 September, 2016 as last year, finance minister Arun Jaitley became the first one to present a combined Union budget 2017. The decision of merging Railway budget and union budget was based on Committee recommendations which was headed by NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy. The tradition of a separate Railway budget which was started by the British, dates back in 1924. The decision was passed by a 10-member Acworth Committee which was headed by British economist William Mitchell Acworth. During that time the Railway Budget was about 84 per cent of the general budget as Railway revenue was the only major contributor for the nation’s GDP.

The first railway budget of Independent India was presented by India’s first finance minister Sir R.K. Shanmugham Chetty on November 26, 1947. As it was just a review of the Indian economy, no new taxes were imposed by the government. Also, the budget day for 1948-49 was just 95 days away. The finance portfolio was then handled by K.C. Neogy who held the office was just 35 days. John Mathai, the third Finance Minister of India presented the budget 1950-51. This was followed by C.D. Deshmukh who presented the first budget on the basis of adult franchise in the first elected Parliament.

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1995 onwards, the government started preparing the budget papers in Hindi as well. Morarji Desai who became the finance minister in 1959, presented ten budgets till date. After Morarji Desai, Indira Gandhi who was then the prime minister took charge of the finance. H. M. Patel presented the shortest budget speech in 1977. After V P Singh quit his government, Rajiv Gandhi presented the budget for 1987-88. He was the only Prime Minister to present a budget after his mother and grandfather in the parliament. Yashwant Sinha presented the budget for 1991-92.

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After the 1991 elections Manmohan Singh became the Finance Minister but this was the first time when when the interim and final budgets were presented by two different ministers of two different political parties. The final budget for 1996-97 was presented by P. Chidambaram. Due to a constitutional crisis, a special session of Parliament was convened only to pass Chidambaram’s budget of 1997-98. Mamata Banerjee became the first women Railway minister of India in 2000 and she is also the first female Minister to present the Railway budget.

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Lalu Prasad Yadav, who remained Railways Minister from 2004 to May 2009, presented the railway budget six times consecutively. Under the Modi regime, D. V. Sadananda Gowda presented the first railway Budget and Suresh Prabhu is the last Railway minster to present the separate railway budget.