Budget 2019: Know the curious case of Finance Minister's briefcase

On the day of Budget presentation, all eyes in the country are on the briefcase carried by the Finance Minister to the Parliament House. Interestingly, the Budget Briefcase has a curious history of its own and has evolved in the size, structure, design and colour over time.

New Delhi: The printing of budget documents has begun in North Block in the capital. India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be presenting the General Budget for the financial year 2019-20 on July 5 in the Lok Sabha.

On the day of Budget presentation, all eyes in the country are on the briefcase carried by the Finance Minister to the Parliament House. Interestingly, the Budget Briefcase has a curious history of its own and has evolved in the size, structure, design and colour over time.

After Independence, India's different Finance Ministers have carried different briefcases. Sometimes, red velvet, sometimes black while sometimes tan.

In fact, the Finance Ministry offers the Finance Minister a choice of three or four bags out of which he picks one depending upon his choice of colour.

Let us have a look at the briefcase colour choice of India’s Finance Ministers for carrying budget documents.

• R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, India's first Finance Minister presented the first budget in 1947, carried a leather portfolio bag
• T. T. Krishnamachari, Finance Minister from 1956-1958 and 1964-1966, carried a file bag
• In the year 1958, Jawaharlal Nehru carried a black briefcase
• It was only after the 1970s when Finance Ministers began carrying the classic hardtop attache case
• Yashwant Sinha's Budget briefcase was close to the Red Budget Box with straps and buckles used by Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain
• Manmohan Singh carried a briefcase that resembled William Ewart Gladstone's briefcase, which was black in colour
• Pranab Mukherjee caught everyone's eyeballs by picking a cherry red briefcase on the day of the budget presentation
• Following former British PM Gladstone mould, P Chidambaram used a plain brown and a reddish brown briefcase
• Arun Jaitley stuck to a deeper shade of brown for his Budget briefcase in 2014 switching it to a tan colour in the next year and dark brown in 2017
• While presenting the Interim Budget 2019, Piyush Goyal turned to the familiar red briefcase
• Now the countdown has begun and it will be curious to see, what colour will Nirmala Sitharaman pick for the Budget Briefcase