Since 2024 is a Lok Sabha election year, this budget will only be a vote-on-account and a full-fledged budget will be presented after the polls. The new government, likely to be formed around June, will come up with a final 2024-25 budget sometime in July. 

This is Nirmala Sitharaman’s sixth straight budget, matching the record of Dr Manmohan Singh. Sitharaman, India’s first full-time female finance minister, has presented five full budgets ever since assuming office in July 2019. With the presentation of the Interim Budget on Thursday, Sitharaman will surpass her predecessors– Arun Jaitley, and Yashwant Sinha. 

Arun Jaitley and Yashwant Sinha presented five budgets in a row. 

Sector-wise expectations from Union Budget 2024

Despite this being only a vote-on-account budget, the common man wants Nirmala Sitharaman to announce a decrease in taxes, further increase in the threshold for income-tax rebates, revision in the capital gain tax system, addition of more benefits under the new tax regime, and the removal of goods and services tax (GST) from insurance policies. 

Women entrepreneurs are also looking forward to increased budgetary allocation to enhance their access to capital apart from hiking equity-based funding.