The ceremony is organised in the basement of North Block, which houses the ministry in the national capital and is attended by the finance minister and other high-ranking officials.

“The final stage of the Budget preparation process for Union Budget 2024-25 commenced with the customary Halwa ceremony in the presence of Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt. @nsitharaman, in New Delhi, today,” the finance ministry said in a post on X.

What is ‘halwa’ ceremony?

The ceremony is a kind of a ‘send-off’ for finance ministry officials and staff involved in the preparation of the Budget. Officials enter what is called a ‘lock-in’ period, during which they stay in the basement of North Block to maintain secrecy around the final budget document.

The officials only emerge after the finance minister completes her Budget speech in the Lok Sabha. The basement of North Block houses a printing press that was traditionally used to print budget documents for 40 years from 1980 to 2020 after which the budget went digital. Owing to this, the lock-in period has become shorter to just five days from the previous one which lasted up to two weeks.