The Finance Ministry on Saturday came out with a mobile application, ‘Union Budget Mobile App’ for quick dissemination of Union Budget related information.
The budget will be presented on February 1, and will be the first fully paper less budget.
Meanwhile, final stage of budget preparation commenced with the tradition of the
App
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched a dedicated app ‘Union Budget Mobile App’ for hassle-free access of Budget documents by Members of Parliament (MPs) and the general public.
The mobile App facilitates complete access to 14 Union Budget documents, including the Annual Financial Statement (commonly known as Budget), Demand for Grants (DG), Finance Bill etc. as prescribed by the Constitution.
These documents will be available on the ‘Union Budget Mobile App’ after the completion of the Budget Speech by the Finance Minister in Parliament on February 1.
According to the Ministry, the App has a user-friendly interface with embedded features of downloading, printing, search, zoom in and out, bidirectional scrolling, table of contents and external links, etc. It is bilingual (English & Hindi) and will be available on both Android and iOS platforms.
The App can also be downloaded from the Union Budget Web Portal (www.indiabudget.gov.in). The App has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the guidance of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA).
Halwa Ceremony
Though budget documents will not be printed this year, The decades old tradition of Halwa Ceremony took place on Saturday in the North Block which headquarters Union Finance Ministry.
With this a select group of employees will stay in the dedicated area of the Ministry to compile text and data and put them in a format which then can be uploaded on website and app. They will stay there till presentation of budget is completed.
This area will be out of bound even for regular Finance Ministry officials and employees barring some senior officials involved in the union budget preparation. Employees staying in dedicated area will also not be permitted to meet their families except in emergency type of situation.