By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, FEB 09, 2014: WITH India going for general elections in a couple of months there will be no Union Budget this time in the current month. But, this does not mean that there would be no halwa in North Block. Since the UPA-II will be going for the 'Vote on Account' Bill to seek Parliamentary sanction for regular expenses of the Government beyond the current fiscal and till the time a New Government takes charge of the economy, detailed financial documents have to be tabled in the House.

Since printing of such financial documents is traditionally done by the Printing Press commissioned in the basement of the Ministry of Finance, whether there is Budget or no Budget, the 'Halwa Ceremony' has to be celebrated. Such a tradition has been in place and is relished by senior officials in the North Block when their 'laboured' proposals finally go for printing. Since printing also means a stage beyond all the layers of scrutiny and corrections, such a moment is enjoyed by the Budget Team by sharing halwa with each other.

And once the Halwa Ceremony is through, the 'Lock-in' period begins for all those personnel and officials who are responsible for making 'sets' of budget papers to be tabled in the House. It is 'locked-in' time because they are not allowed to go home and interact with the outside world. They are not even allowed to make calls or visit any officer other than the Budget Team even in the North Block. This is to maintain the secrecy of the budget documents.

So, yesterday was the 'Halwa Ceremony' Day which was celerated by the Union Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram who is going to table the Interim Budget on Feb 17 at 11 AM. All those who escorted the FM were Ministers of State Namo Narain Meena & J.D.Seelam, Finance Secretary Sumit Bose, and other Secretaries of the Finance Ministry, Chairpersons of CBEC and CBDT and Joint Secretary (Budget) and other officers and staff of the Ministry of Finance involved in Budget preparation and printing process.

When TIOL did a reality check with one of the officials about the 'taste' of the halwa yesterday, he said that it was indeed sumptuous and the Interim Budget too is going to be 'tasty'!