Growth Convergence and Public Finances of India and its States #IndiaFinance

11:00 AM
to

12:30 PM (IST)

The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is delighted to invite you to a seminar titled “Growth Convergence and Public Finances of India and its States” on Friday, January 10, 2025 from 11:00 AM-12:30 PM (IST).

The seminar will feature a presentation by Rajan Govil, Macroeconomic Advisor, IMF – South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center. This will be followed by a conversation with Janak Raj and Renu KohliSenior Fellows, CSEP.

The seminar will be held at the CSEP Auditorium6, Dr Jose P Rizal Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – Please note that this is an in-person event only. If you are in Delhi on the day, please join us for the seminar. The event will be available on the CSEP website and YouTube channel upon completion.

Register here to attend

About the event

Lack of convergence in per capita income across Indian states since the beginning of the millennium requires greater resources for lower-income states for investment and improved public services. Central and state governments need to raise revenue (both tax and non-tax) that has remained stagnant around 20% of GDP over the past 3 decades, dismantle the administered pricing mechanism, reduce subsidies, and reorient expenditure toward national and state-level priorities. This is essential to ensure India remains on a sustainable fiscal path with higher growth, given the high public debt at the centre and state level. The observed wide differences in fiscal parameters across states require a tailored policy for each state. The large stock of debt of several states puts at risk the adequate financing of growth-enhancing expenditures.

Presenter

Rajan Govil

Rajan Govil is Macroeconomic Advisor at IMF – South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center. He has worked as a senior economist at the IMF – Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) and in the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department. Rajan has also worked as an economist/investment strategist in the private financial sector. He was Head of Investment Strategy, Asia at BSI Bank and Chief Economist – India at HSBC Bank. Rajan has advised investment management firms on global asset allocation, economic opportunities, and assessing risks. He has taught at Delhi University and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Rajan has a PhD in Economics from Vanderbilt University.

Discussants

Janak Raj

Janak Raj is a Senior Fellow and leads the macroeconomic segment in the Growth, Finance and Development vertical at CSEP. He also works specifically on inter-linkages between economic growth and human development, fiscal federalism in the health sector, climate finance and multilateral development banks (MDBs) reforms. He is currently also a member of the JM Financial Centre for Financial Research of IIM Udaipur. He has more than four decades of work experience, including in the Reserve Bank of India, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Ministry of Finance (Department of Financial Services). Janak Raj served as an Executive Director in the Reserve Bank of India and as a member of its statutory Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). He also served as Principal Adviser of Monetary Policy Department and International Department of the RBI and headed its Department of Economic Policy and Research. At the IMF Washington DC, he was Senior Advisor to the Executive Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka. He served as an RBI nominee director on the Governing Board of the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and as a Senior Consultant in the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance. He holds a PhD in Economics from IIT Bombay.

Renu Kohli

Renu Kohli is an economist with research and practitioner experience on macroeconomic policies and issues. She has previously worked with the RBI, the IMF and thinktanks including ICRIER and the Institute of Economic Growth. Her work has focused on financial sector liberalization, capital flows and exchange rate management in emerging markets with special India focus, international macroeconomic coordination, and recently, the macroeconomic impact of decarbonization in India. She has been published in refereed journals such as the Review of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Asian Economics, Oxford University Press, IMF Working Papers, RBI Staff papers, and contributed to edited volumes. She has exposure to multilateral surveillance including Article IV missions; as short-term expert with IMF Institute, her training missions include courses on financial programming & policies and macroeconomic diagnostics. Dr Kohli has wider engagement with the private financial sector and investors through talks, presentations and consultation on Indian macroeconomic policies. She also serves as an independent director on the board of NCML Ltd and NFIN.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at [email protected] for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at [email protected] for media queries.