‘Halwa ceremony’ on 26 January to herald Budget, and the ‘lock-in’ of finance ministry staff

In the annual ritual, the finance minister prepares the sweet, serves it to colleagues in appreciation of their hard work on Budget.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and MoS for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur during Halwa Ceremony of Budget 2020 | ANI file photo

New Delhi: The “halwa ceremony”, an annual ritual that heralds the Union Budget, will take place on 26 January in the presence of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, her department said Wednesday.

The Ministry of Finance tweeted: “The Halwa ceremony, marking the final stage of the Budget preparation process for Union Budget 2023-24, will be held tomorrow in the presence of Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. @nsitharaman, in the Budget Press situated inside North Block.”

The ceremony begins the “lock-in” period that the finance ministry staff enter into — in the Budget Press located in the ministry’s headquarters in the North Block. They can emerge only once the Finance Minister completes her Budget speech on 1 February.

The ceremony is considered a gesture of appreciation by the minister to those who have worked on the Budget. The finance minister usually stirs a big cauldron of “halwa” before serving it to her colleagues, and then they get locked into the press, which has been used to print the Budget document for 40 years from 1980 to 2020.

Previously, this “lock-in” period – when officials cannot be in contact with the outside world – would be longer.

Since 2021, however, the Budget has been presented in a purely digital format, and the lock-in period has gotten shorter.

“Like the previous two Union Budgets, Union Budget 2023-24 will also be delivered in paperless form. The Union Budget 2023-24 is to be presented on 1st February, 2023,” the Ministry of Finance further tweeted.

“The Budget documents will be available on the ‘Union Budget Mobile App’ on both the Android and Apple OS platforms after the completion of the Budget Speech by the Finance Minister in Parliament on 1st February, 2023,” it added.

Last year, the pandemic forced the “halwa ceremony” to be altered wherein sweets were delivered to the homes of the core staff instead of the physical ritual in North Block.

While the Narendra Modi government has done away with several traditional aspects of the Budget – such as merging the Rail Budget with the main Budget, bringing forward the date of presentation to 1 February instead of the last date of that month, and moving to a digital format – the “halwa ceremony” proudly remains a tradition that has survived.