Budget officer loses father, refuses to leave printing area

The printing of Budget papers begin with a  ‘halwa’ ceremony. It takes place in the presence of the Finance Minister. After ‘halwa’ is distributed among the Finance Ministry staff, those assigned with the printing of Budget are locked in the basement press area of the North Block. Till the Budget presentation, fooding and lodging arrangements are made inside the North Block.

On 26 Jaunary one of the officer  Kuldeep Kumar Sharma involved for budget making has lost his father. The Finance Ministry tweeted that “due to the budget session, the official could not be held at his father’s funeral. She praised him through Twitter and said that one of our officers Kuldeep Kumar Sharma did not get away from his work even after losing his father and kept working on budget duty, did not go home”.

Kuldeep Kumar Sharma is the Deputy Manager in the Finance Ministry Press. It is the rule that until the budget is presented, all the officials and employees associated with the budget process are not allowed to go out. Since the country’s general budget is to be presented in Parliament on Saturday. Only after which Kuldeep can get out.

However, the process of budgeting starts from September which lasts for 6 months. After this, the process of printing budget documents is started with ‘Halwa’ ceremonies. After the Halwa Ceremony, the officials and employees associated with the budget process remain in the Finance Ministry.

Further The Finance Ministry Nirmala Sitharaman said in a tweet, ‘We are sorry to say that Mr. Kuldeep Kumar Sharma, Deputy Manager (Press) lost his father on 26 January 2020. He could not even go out for the budget session. During that time, despite losing his father, Sharma decided not to leave the press area even for a minute and these tasks are commendable. From this, you can guess how dedicated he is to his work.”  Sharma has 31 years of experience in the budget process and in this budget session, he has a very important role in working in such a short time.