For the first time, a camera was allowed to pick up moving images from a government of India office in the basement of North Block and whose still photos were till now considered a state secret.
The images put up on the YouTube channel of the finance ministry were captured from the ritual halwa ceremony, held about 10 days before the general Budget is presented in Lok Sabha.
They did not reveal any state secrets but offered tantalising images of the office of the printing press where most of the Budget papers, including the speech of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, is printed.
Yet, do the first-time images and the recent comments by ministry officials on deficit, taxation and others point to a larger trend in relaxation of the secrecy surrounding the general Budget?
Ashok Chawla, who saw through three Budgets in his term as secretary, economic affairs and then as finance secretary from September 2008 to January 2011, is circumspect.
“It is very unlikely that it could be part of a pattern to lower the veil of secrecy on the process,” he said.
The markets have, however, noticed the changes.
“They are now convinced after the detailed comments that the minister will stick to the target of fiscal deficit for this year,” said Saugata Bhattacharya, chief economist and senior vice-president at Axis Bank.
An example he referred to is the worry the debt market had about the Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion) of additional sum the states will borrow this financial year.
On Friday, the Centre came out with a press release to reassure investors that transfers to the states from the common tax pool were on track.
Vinod Rai (secretary, financial services, 2006 to December 2007) acknowledged there was a distinct change in the ‘audio level’ from the ministry, of late.
“The officials have definitely spoken out in detail on a number of issues,” he said, unlike a few years earlier when comments nearer to the Budget were reserved for only finance ministers, like P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee.
Even Jaitley this time has been more forthcoming with detail.
For instance, speaking to the consultative committee attached to the ministry, Jaitley said this month: “We will be able to contain the fiscal deficit as per the target fixed for the current financial year 2015-16. . . .this was also the first time that the real expenditure amount was higher than the Budget proposal”.
At the same event in 2015, the minister had confined himself to generalities. 
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