The budget is all set to be presented tomorrow. So why not take a sneak peek at Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Team who are behind the awaited budget of 2021-22.

As this Union Budget is a vital financial statement of the government, people are expecting various corrective measures after the COVID-19 pandemic situation. 

Our Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has previously said that her third budget will be an ‘extraordinary’, something that has never been done before. It will be present on February 1.

Let’s take a dive into the team.

  • TV Somanathan – Coming from Tamil Nadu,  the 1987 batch officer, he is presently the expenditure secretary. Majorly his task is to cut out this budget and rather than focusing of spending to be cautious about reviving the growth. As the expense secretary he has taken difficult decisions of cutting costs in major departments except the one meant for fighting the COVID-19 battle. Previously he has worked at the PMO from April 2015 to August 2017.
  • Tuhin Kanta Pandey – Hailing from Punjab cadre, the 1987 batch officer, he is the secretary of Department of Investment and Public Asset Management. There are a lot of expectations from his department as the government is looking forward to closure of big-bang disinvestments like privatisation of BPCL and Air India.
  • Tarun Bajaj – Coming from Haryana cadre, the 1988 batch officer, he is the economic affairs secretary and will be looking after drafting Sitharaman’s speech for Budget. He is the one who has been an important piece in shaping their three Aatmanirbhar Bharat sets of relief measures.
  • Krishnamurthy Subramaniam – An alumnus of IIT, IIM and University of Chicago Booth School of Business, he and his team are responsible for drafting the Economic Survey which is very important for the budget. In the past he was a professor at the ISB, Hyderabad. He has been the one to predict a ‘V-shaped’ recovery for India since the time COVID-19 lockdown measures were relaxed.
  • Debashish Panda – Coming from Uttar Pradesh cadre batch of 1987, an IAS officer from 1987-batch, is leading the Department of Financial Services. His responsibility is to look after all the financial sector-related announcements. For this role he has to work closely with the RBI to ensure the stability of the financial system. 
  • Ajay Bhushan Pandey – Coming from Maharashtra cadre, a 1984 batch officer, is holding the position of the finance secretary. The responsibility for this position will primarily include setting up achievable tax targets, even as the economy recovers to pre-pandemic levels of 2019-20. His retirement is due in February and before that he is expected to set certain targets which are a little different in comparison to previous year. Prior to this he was holding the position of the CEO of Unique Identification Authority of India.