Budget 2026: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to present the Union Budget 2026 on a Sunday on the first day of February which has been the practice since 2017. Will Sitharaman present Budget 2026 on a Sunday? According to officials the Narendra Modi government is expected to follow the Parliamentary convention established in 2017 and present the General Budget for 2026-27 on February 1 2026 even though it falls on a Sunday this year. We have a fixed day for the presentation of the general budget. The concept of Sunday was brought by the British an official said. However Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said a decision on the date is yet to be taken. These decisions are taken by the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs at an appropriate time he said. Notably before 2017 the Union Budget was presented on the last day of February and the Parliament would pass the vote on account to withdraw monies from the Consolidated Fund of India to meet the expenses for the first quarter of the new fiscal year. Why February 1 was picked for presenting general budget? The budget for the rest of the financial year used to be sanctioned by Parliament at a later date after the examination of the demands for grants of various departments by the respective parliamentary standing committees. But the practice was changed by then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who introduced the norm of presenting the budget on February 1 and getting it approved by Parliament by the end of March well before the start of the new financial year. Jaitley started the practice of presenting general budget on February 1 to ensure that it is implemented at the start of the new fiscal year which begins on April 1.