Budget 2021: FM quotes Tagore & cites Cricket; won't read into 'post-contraction Budget'

Presenting the Union Budget 2021 in the Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman quoted Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, on Monday. 'I borrow the words from Rabindranath Tagore, "Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark," said Sitharaman, as she presented the Union budget in the Lok Sabha. 

Sitharaman also compared the economic recovery with that of India's series win in Australia. "Team India's spectacular success in Australia reminds us of the inherent strengths of the people of India," she said. 

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FM introduces 'digital budget'

The Finance Minister said the budget this time was prepared in circumstances like never before amid the Coronavirus pandemic that affected the country and hit the global economy. "But what we have endured with COVID-19 to 2020 is sui generis (unique)," she said.

"Only three times has the budget followed a contraction in the economy. This time, unlike before, the situation is due to a global pandemic. This Budget will be the first of this new decade. It will also be a digital budget," said Sitharaman as she presented her third budget as finance minister.

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Back in 2019, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had eschewed the colonial legacy of a leather briefcase for carrying the budget documents and replaced it with a traditional red cloth 'Bahi-Khata' in her first Budget Session. This time FM decided to move away from the traditional style of 'Bahi-Khata' in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and switched to digital. She took an unprecedented step by launching the 'Union Budget Mobile App' during the Halwa Ceremony earlier this month. 

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