Union Budget 2023 Halwa Ceremony: A customary “Halwa” ceremony will be held on January 26 to mark the conclusion of the Budget preparation process. The Halwa event takes place five days before the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, presents the Union Budget on February 1.
January 2023 Current Affairs Quiz
What is Halwa Ceremony?
The preparation and serving of the traditional dessert, known as halwa, to representatives and employees of the finance ministry who worked on the Budget is a yearly rite known as the Halwa ceremony. It is conducted annually at the Finance Ministry’s offices in the basement of the Secretariat building in New Delhi, the capital of the country, and is attended by other senior officials.
How Halwa Ceremony is organized?
- The finance minister typically starts the festivities by stirring a kadhai or cauldron full of halwa before serving it to colleagues.
- The Halwa ceremony is thought of as a method to express gratitude to those who worked on the Budget, a lengthy process. Additionally, it prepares the groundwork for the “lock-in” period that comes before the Budget presentation.
Union Budget 2023 Halwa Ceremony: Highlights
- • To safeguard the confidentiality of the Budget, the Finance Ministry’s administrative center is transformed into a fictitious “Fort Knox.” To prevent information from leaking, officials who are working on the budget “lock in” at their offices and segregate themselves under rigorous guidelines. During this time, phone calls are monitored, employees are not permitted to leave the building, and they are required to remain under the watchful eye of CCTV cameras and the Intelligence Bureau.
- The North Block’s basement, which also contains the special printing press that produced the Budget documents from 1980 to 2020, has been the site of the Halwa ceremony for decades.
- However, the Budget will now be delivered digitally beginning in 2020. The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, will once more present the budget digitally.