Tamilians who presented Union Budget

When Nirmala Sitharaman presented her maiden budget on July 5, she became the sixth Tamilian Union Finance Minister to  do so.

Since India’s Independence, Tamil Nadu has been playing a significant role in presenting the Union Budget or the annual financial statements in Parliament.

The first union budget was presented by Coimbatore born R K Shanmukham Chetty, India’s first Union Finance Minister. His budget had a financial outlay of a meagre Rs 171.15 crore in 1947. Nirmala Sitharaman’s 2019-20 budget proposes to spend a massive Rs 27,86,349 crore in the current fiscal year. Nirmala Sitharaman is India’s first woman full time Finance Minister and she is Madurai born.

India has seen 73 budgets presented by 29 finance ministers since Independence, of which 21 budgets (including three interim) were tabled by six finance ministers from Tamil Nadu. Most of these ministers were represented by Indian National Congress. Nirmala Sitharaman represents Bharthiya Janata Party and P Chidamabram twice represented Tamil Maanila Congress. On the other seven occasions, Chidambaram represented the Indian National Congress government.

None from any of the Dravidian parties have gone on to become a Union Finance Minister, yet.

Morarji Desai has a record of presenting the maximum of 10 budgets followed by P Chidambram’s nine and Pranab Mukherjee’s eight. Yashwant Sinha, Y B Chavan and C D Deshmukh have presented  seven each while T T Krishnamachari and Manmohan Singh have presented six 

budgets each.

The first budget tabled by R K Shannmukham Chetty on  November 26, 1947 mainly focused on a starving nation’s food shortage. Wounded by partition, severe poverty, food shortage and refugee crisis, Chetty’ s budget had targeted a revenue of Rs 175.15 crore. Total expenditure for the year was estimated at Rs 197.29 crore with an estimated deficit of Rs 26.24 crore.

Food production, defence and civil expenditure absorbed the major allotment. Defence got a higher allocation of Rs 92.74 crore because of the looming Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. Customs receipts were placed at Rs 50.5 crore in the first budget and revenue from post and telegraph was estimated at Rs 9 crore.

“If India, just risen from bondage, is to realise her destiny as the leader of Asia and take her place in the front rank of free nations, she would require all the disciplined effort her sons can put forth in the years immediately ahead,” Chetty said in the concluding part of his budget speech.

Born in October 1892 in Coimbatore, Shanmukham Chetty hailed from a business family. He was India’s delegate to the World Monetary Conference at Bretton Woods in 1944 that created a foundation for a new economic order after the Second World War. His expertise in the world of economy helped him in getting the high profile portfolio of finance minister of India.

Chetty was chosen by Mahatma Gandhi against the wishes of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Chetty quit the post after a short period due to a conflict with Nehru. The much publicised tradition of finance ministers carrying the budget documents in a leather briefcase was started with the presentation of Independent India’s first budget by him.

T T Krishnamachari, widely hailed for building the economic and industrial base of the county, was finance minister from 1956-58 and 1964-1966, and presented the budget six times. Krishnamchari’s first budget in 1957 saw path breaking tax reforms and as the country was facing shortage of foreign exchange, he palced restrictions on import. He had introduced wealth tax, tax on expenditure and a new tax on railway passenger fee to widen the tax net.

TTK said in his 1957 budget speech: “Revenue, as a whole, is now placed at Rs 571 crore, an increase of Rs 44.10 crore over the budget estimates, and expenditure at Rs 533.55 crores against the budget figure of Rs 545.43 crore.”

During his stint, TTK initiated setting up three major steel plants in the public sector and financial institutions like IDBI, ICICI and UTI and tmany other hydro-electric projects.

TTK, a successful businessman and the founder of the TTK group was the first minster to resign from the cabinet after allegations of corruptions. He was reinstated again in 1963 and continued as a finance minister.

Pollachi-born Chidambaram Subramaniam, a veteran freedom fighter and the architect of India’s green revolution presented two budgets -- in 1975-76 and 1976-77—the zenith of Indira Gandhi’s socialism. In his maiden budget, his focus was on agriculture, including the supply of good quality seeds of high-yielding varieties. Fertilizer production programmes were also pushed to increase the yield. Farmers credit societies were formed to provide loan to encourage the processing and marketing of their produce.

His budget speech says: Budgetary provision for the central plan of Rs 2,558 crore represents a step up of Rs 429 crores over the revised estimate of Rs 2,129 crore in the current year.” I am conscious that a more substantial step up in the Plan investment to provide for achievement of draft Fifth Plan targets in all sectors would have been desirable from the long-term perspective of the economy.”  By proposing an additional revenue of Rs 239 crore, he had reduced deficit from Rs 464 crore to Rs 225 crore, a rare phenomenon in budget preparation.

He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award in 1998.

Ramaswamy Venkataraman, had an illustrious career in state politics before moving to the Centre as union industry minister, finance minister and later as defence minister, before becoming Vice President and finally President of India. Born in Rajamadam village, in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu, Venkataraman, presented two full-fledged budgets and one interim budget. Socio-economic improvement was the theme.

In his first budget, he abolished radio licence fee, making a loss of Rs 4 crore to the exchequer. Similarly, tax on TV sets was also reduced from 30 per cent to 25 per cent.The plan outlay for 1980-81 was Rs 7,340 crore. The budget document says “It will be financed by a budgetary provision of Rs 5,322 crore and internal and other resources of public sector undertakings of Rs 2,018 crores.” A provision of Rs 3,094 crores was made for Central assistance to the States.

A slew of allocations were proposed for hills and tribal areas, special component plans for the scheduled castes and schemes of the North Eastern Council.

In his budget speech, Venkatraman said,“ within the constraints imposed by the difficult economic situation inherited by the present government, I have endeavoured my best to provide relief to those who deserve it most. I have tried to impart a judicious stimulus to investment. With the higher levels of investment, in the public sector as well as the private sector, and its particular sectoral distribution, both production and employment should register a substantial increase. My Budget represents a modest contribution to the process of restoring the country’s economy to the path of stability, growth and social justice,” he concluded his speech.

Palaniyappan Chidambaram, then representing G K Mooppanar’s TMC, presented his maiden budget, popularly known as “dream budget’ in 1997 that laid out a strong vision for liberalized India to become one of the largest economy in the world.

The dream budget came from a weak United Front government. He boldly introduced drastic changes in taxation side – both direct and indirect taxes., by reducing income tax from 40 per cent to 30 per cent. Peak custom duty was reduced to 40 per cent from 50 per cent and excise duty was simplified.

It helped further open up the economy and attracted good inflow of foreign direct investment. Indicating that India’s place is with high growing Asian giants like Japan and China, Chidambaram said in his maiden budget speech, “These countries have shown that with courage, wisdom and pragmatism, they can find their rightful places in the world.”

After his maiden budget Chidambaram tabled eight more budgets in Parliament, making him the only finance minister from the state with nine budgets to his credit.

His budget speeches were crisp and sharp, and were layered with quotes from Tamil classic Tirukkural and quotes from Rabindranath Tagore and Chinese revolutionary Deng Ziao Peng.

Madurai-born Nirmala Sitharaman has a strong foundation to take the growth on the right path. India is one of the largest growing economies with a growth rate close to 7 per cent and a GDP of $ 2.7 trillion billion. She expects the economy to reach the $3 trillion league in the current year.

The 2019 budget proposes to spend a massive amount Rs 27,86,349 crore for the current year and have laid out plans for huge spend on infrastructure, housing infrastructure, higher education and job generation. The aim is to take the economy into the $5 trillion bracket over the next 5 years.

Nirmala Sitharaman broke the age old tradition of carrying budget documents to Parliament house in a leather briefcase by bringing it in a red cloth known as ‘bahi khaata', that was hailed by many commentators as an attempt to break from a colonial hangover, but for others it is a symbol of feudal oppression.