History is carved when Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan completed his three-hour-long budget speech on Friday. The first budget of MK Stalin's government was unveiled in the assembly on Friday by the Finance Minister amid carrying more expectations in rolling out the schemes to deliver the poll promises the party had made during the elections. The budget was presented two days ahead of the marking of hundred days of the MK Stalin administration.

The budget session has begun on Friday during which the captain of the budget, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan had presented the revised budget at 10 am in the assembly. In what has become a historical session, Tamil Nadu had seen many firsts in the budget session, besides the first budget of MK Stalin. It is the first e-budget for Tamil Nadu - each MLA would be given an electronic device in which they can access the budget rather than the preceding era of paper budgets. It would be the first revised budget to be presented outside of the Chief Secretariat- the budget session will be hosted by Kalaivanar Hall in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It would be the first budget session for Tamil Nadu where a separate budget will be presented for Agriculture. Amid the slew of histories, there is one crucial factor that made the historical budget more special - Palanivel Thiagarajan had himself prepared this budget in his own hands rather than directing the authorities to prepare it in a typical fashion. Palanivel Thiagarajan is the first time minister and his decision to preparing the budget on his own has come in the footsteps of late DMK President and five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi. It was in fact become the first such budget in 25 years.

In 1996, Karunanidhi was serving as the Chief Minister and he was also holding the post of Finance Minister as the additional charge and he had written the budget in his own hands and presented it to the assembly. Following his footsteps, Palanivel Thiagarajan had himself written the budget and presented it to the assembly on Friday. In his recent tweet, Thiagarajan has said that this budget is not being prepared by the IAS officials, rather it is being prepared by the politician and it's not PTR's (Palanivel Thiagarajan) budget, it's the budget of the Chief Minister. It must be noted that even former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram too liked to write the budget with his own hands. 

Palanivel Thiagarajan had done the same and made the historical budget more special. The making of the Tamil Nadu budget would always be interesting. The Chief Minister will be reviewing and taking stock of the departments from the ministers and higher officials. The Chief Minister will then be discussing prominent factors that must be added to the budget following which each minister will table the financial requirements and schemes for their respective ministry and having that information, the finance ministry will produce a draft budget and this draft proposal will be sent to the Chief Minister and all the ministers to obtain their views and suggestions. 

After modifying the draft based on suggestions, the finance minister would give a final sketch of the budget and it will be forwarded to the Chief Minister for final approval. After the approval from the Chief Minister, the work to write the full-fledged budget will begin and the budget will mostly be written by the IAS officials and it will initially be prepared in Tamil Nadu later will be translated into English and after all these proceedings, the finance minister would make arrangements for presenting it in the assembly and in this budget, Palanivel Thiagarajan had made the arrangement of presenting the state's first paperless budget. 

Recently, speaking to a Tamil news agency, Palanivel Thiagarajan has revealed that the advice was obtained from the Chief Minister's economic council in preparing the white paper and the budget. The council comprises of some of the global economic bigheads as its members including former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and former Union government's economic advisor Arvind Subramanian. It was the first-of-its-kind committee in the state formed to seek recommendations on reviving the economy that was severely hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. 

In his three-hour-long speech, Thiagarajan had made several announcements and some of the major announcements include reducing the petrol price. Reducing petrol price was one of the hundreds of poll promises the DMK had made during the state elections and four months after coming to power, the government has now reduced the price amid facing a severe financial crisis. In his budget presentation on Friday, finance minister Palanivel Thiagarajan had announced a reduction of Rs 3 in the state tax for one litre of petrol. He said that he was instructed by the Chief Minister to provide some relief to the working class and middle-class people, many of whom owned two-wheelers and used petrol-run vehicles for their transportation. 

According to reports, the reduction of state tax on per litre of petrol would bring petrol prices below Rs 100 per litre and Tamil Nadu has become the first state to reduce the state tax on petrol and to bring down the petrol price. Presently, one litre sells for Rs 102.51 in the state and MK Stalin's decision to reduce the petrol price had drawn huge commendation as it may pour a relief to millions of people and it will also put more pressure on other states to invoke such reduction in their respective territories. During his speech, Palanivel Thiagarajan said that the government would incur the loss of Rs 1,160 crore per year by reducing the state tax per litre of petrol.