New Delhi. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the first budget of Modi 3.0 today i.e. on 23 July. From the general public to the industry, everyone has great expectations from this budget. India has a rich tradition of budget. India's first budget was presented in the year 1860 by Scottish economist James Wilson.

If we talk about post-independence, RK Shanmukham Chetty was the first Finance Minister. He presented the first Union Budget of independent India on 26 November 1947. Since then, more than 70 Union Budgets have been presented in the country. Let us know about five such budgets which proved to be a milestone in the economic history of India.

Liberalisation of the economy took place in 1991-92

If any budget decides the fate of modern India, it is the Union Budget of 1991. At that time, the country was facing a serious financial crisis. In a way, India was on the verge of bankruptcy. The then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh used his ability as an economist and brought about significant reforms in the country's economy. Manmohan Singh's budget reduced custom duty, i.e. tax on goods imported from abroad, from 220 percent to 150 percent. This made Indian trade more competitive globally. He also initiated liberalization. In this, economic freedom was promoted by reducing government interference in business.

This budget proved to be a milestone in the economic history of India. It improved India's image across the world by ending the much talked about 'License Raj'. License Raj meant a system where you had to get a permit or license from the government to do any business. This took a lot of time and the bureaucracy also had a lot of arbitrariness.

Manmohan Singh's budget restored the world's confidence in the Indian economy. It attracted foreign investment. This also paved the way for India to become an economic power.

Chidambaram brought 'Dream Budget' in 1997-98

P Chidambaram worked under the guidance of Finance Minister Manmohan Singh in the 1991 Narasimha Rao government. He introduced economic and financial acumen while presenting the 1997 budget, when he became the Finance Minister. This budget was termed as a 'dream budget' by experts. In this, personal income tax and corporate tax were reduced drastically. The highest personal income tax rate was reduced from 40 to 30 percent. This gave a big relief to the taxpayers and it was considered one of the best budgets in Indian history.

Yashwant Sinha presented a landmark budget in 2000-01

Yashwant Sinha prepared the blueprint for digital revolution in the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. His budget proved to be revolutionary especially for the IT sector. In this, custom duty was reduced on 21 items including computers. This led to a boom in the country's IT industry and India became a hub of IT growth.

In 2016-17, Arun Jaitley merged the general and railway budgets

In the first term of the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the responsibility of Finance Minister was with the late Arun Jaitley. He made a historic change by merging the general budget and the railway budget. This was the end of a 92-year-old tradition. Arun Jaitley streamlined the two budgets by merging them and presenting a single budget. Since then, the railway budget has not been presented separately.

2019-20 Sitharaman gave big relief to the corporate world

The current Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the first budget on 5 July 2019. Her first major economic reform was to reduce the corporate tax from 30 percent to 22 percent. The economy had suffered a big blow due to demonetization and the implementation of GST. Reducing the corporate tax helped the industry a lot in recovering.

Sitharaman was also made in-charge of the COVID-19 Economic Response Task Force during the Corona pandemic. A special economic package of Rs 20 lakh crore, equivalent to about 10 percent of the country's GDP, was also announced to overcome the economic difficulties during the Corona period.