The Malayala Manorama Budget Lecture, the mainstay event hosted by the news and media group every year, analyses the Union Budget in detail each year. This time, the gathering in its 26th edition, saw expert insights from Dr Rajiv Kumar, former Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog, and renowned economist.
“The Budget has come at a time when the world is going through many transitions,” Kumar began his lecture. With the world going through economical, geopolitical, and environmental transitions, along with the shift from global North to global South, the economist took a very engaging and curious audience through the latest Union Budget in three stages.
The first stage covered the technical aspects, laying out the expenditure and the general structure of the Budget. The second stage focuses on the economy as such, along with the prospects, and the idea of “Visit Bharat 2047”. The third, was a detailed analysis on the Kerala economy, in light of the budget.
As the economist detailed a thorough and informative analysis on various aspects of the Union Budget, tabled by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Feb 1, 2025, at the Parliament, he stressed on the need for Asset Monetisation.
Lauding the latest Budget for aiming for asset monetisation of Rs 10 lakh crore, Kumar opined that the government should actively look to release inefficient government assets—such as buildings in city centres—to private players, thereby bringing liquidity to the economy.
“The Indian private economy is surplus” and therefore, able to take on such assets, the economist reasoned, citing an example of a public-sector telecom building in the “middle of Janpath, right in the heart of Delhi” sold for “thousands of crores”. “How many such buildings does government and telecom sector have?” he implored.
Does India need its own version of DOGE?
State government buildings in the centre of towns that are not being used efficiently could be utilised to increase asset monetisation, Kumar said. “What you essentially need, is an Indian version of DOGE,” he stated, referring to the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency by the latest US administration headed by Donald Trump.
One of the ambits of the US DOGE is to find inefficiency gaps in governance and find suitable ways of increasing the output of assets. Traditionally, in the US, that also meant asset monetisation through the sale or lease of high-value government properties.
Apart from this, Kumar also highlighted the importance of building the economy in a sustainable manner. Criticising that our fertile land has gone down significantly and that our agricultural gains are undercut by cancer-causing pesticides and fertilisers, Kumar called for an improved version of the Green revolution.
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The economist took a balanced approach to the Budget, stating that the tax system would remain “repressive” as long as there is no reduction in indirect taxes. The finance minister, this time around, announced a new tax slab and reduced tax rates for direct income taxes, aimed at the lower middle class. However, there was no talk on reducing GST and other indirect taxes such as stamp duties.
Kumar went into the nitty gritty of the Economic Policy and other aspects of the Budget, stating that this Budget was more incremental and less radical in its approach. The session ended with a Q and A moderated by THE WEEK News Editor Mathew T George, where Kumar answered queries from various stakeholders and economic observers, in light of his achievements both in government and in the corporate sector.
Kumar assumed the role of the vice chairman of NITI Aayog in September 2017 and served until April 2022, with the rank of cabinet minister. Between 1991 and 1995, he was the economic adviser with the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance. Apart from roles in the government, Kumar was active in the corporate sector as the secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) from 2011 to 2013 and the chief economist of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) from 2004 to 2006.
The renowned economist recently resumed his chairmanship of Pahle India Foundation, the not-for-profit policy think tank he established in 2013. During the 2023 Spring Conferment of Decorations, Kumar was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star of Japan, to recognise his contributions to enhancing economic ties between Japan and India.
