Amidst heavy security, a motorcade left the North Block -- the seat of the Union finance ministry -- on Wednesday afternoon.

There was nothing too special about the procession, except that it was carrying merchandise of utmost importance -- for the politician, the businessman, the executive, the housewife and the common man alike.

It was ferrying the Union Budget 2003 papers to the Government Press on Minto Road for printing.

"There are eight floppies and two computer discs; that is all," said a top ministry official. The floppies were sealed twice in the presence of the finance and revenue secretaries before being sent out to the printers.

For the first time, computer experts have been called in for the Budget preparations. There are fifteen computers with a back of a supercomputer system, that contain the Budget in text form. These are encrypted and no operator will be able to access to the prepared text. The system is said to be fool-proof.

Also, security has been handed over to the gun-toting Central Industrial Security Force and the CISF guards are keeping a tight vigil at the printing press.

Seventy-five per cent of the preparations for the Union Budget are over and those working with the finance ministry's budget section are heaving of sigh of relief.

The crucial taxation proposals would be sent to the press on February 26 under heavy security. These proposals are on the hard disc of a computer and senior computer experts have been told not to take floppies, but the hard disc itself.

The Government Press will employ high-tech printing technology for the purpose. The press can print 5,000 copies in one hour. This 'high precision task' has been entrusted to the Computer Maintenance Corporation and the National Informatics Centre.

The Union Budget is expected to be uploaded to the NIC Web site from a computer installed at the printing press. This, officials say, will prevent any leakage of the Union Budget.

For the first time, the Union finance minister's Budget speech will be Web-cast through the NIC Internet Web camera, which can be viewed world over.

Also, this year the finance minister -- unlike his predecessors -- will take just 25 minutes to read, both, Part A and Part B.

The finance minister plans to introduce another innovation. He plans not to 'bother' the Members of Parliament with a boring speech containing loads of statistics. Only the operative portions of the Budget speech would be read, and the remaining parts would be considered 'read', and tabled in Parliament.

Run-up to the Budget 2003