One of the senior most offices of the Union Cabinet, the finance minister is responsible for the fiscal policy of the government.

A key duty of the finance minister is to present the annual Union Budget in Parliament, detailing the government's plan for taxation and spending in the coming financial year.

Through the budget, the finance minister also outlines allocations to all the ministries and departments.

There have been a number of ministers of finance that went on to become the prime minister; Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Manmohan Singh and also to serve as the president; R.Venkataraman and Pranab Mukherjee.

The current finance minister of India is Nirmala Sitharaman.