Finance Minister P Chidambaram will present the Union Budget for 2013-14 in Parliament today. It will be Mr Chidambaram's eighth budget. This budget is significant as it will be the last one before the country faces general elections due in April-May next year. Economic experts feel that people are likely to get some sops in the budgetary announcements by the Finance Minister. They also feel that today's budgetary proposals will try to strike a balance between compulsions of growth and fiscal prudence.
News Services Division of All India Radio will bring a special live bilingual pre-budget discussion from 10.30 AM to 10.55 AM, which will be followed by live relay of the Budget speech of the Finance Minister. The live discussion will continue after the presentation of the Budget and special budget bulletins. There will also be a Radio Bridge Programme from 9.30 PM to 10.30 PM today. All the programmes on the General Budget can be heard on Rajdhani and FM Gold Channels and additional frequencies.
English bulletin at 2 PM will be extended upto 2.30 PM and Hindi bulletin will also be aired for half an hour from 2.30 PM to 3 PM.