Budget should have focused more on asset monetisation: Former Niti Aayog Vice Chairman
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Former Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar has said the Budget should have focused more on asset monetisation and privatisation, besides allocating more funds to the social sector schemes. Finance Mininster Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2023-24 in the Lok Sabha on February 1.
Kumar said ‘There should be (have been) a lot more focus on privatisation and asset monetisation, which I do not find reference to here (Budget).’ He also said Rs 51,000 crore disinvestment target is way too low. He stated 'And in some sense, I feel that the space for private investment, actually has been shrinking in the economy. And I think that's something which can also be seen in the fact that we brought the commercial bank credit growth in double digits finally, but the commercial bank credit to industry is still in the very mid single digits, hardly any demand for credit at all.’
Besides, he suggested that funds raised through asset monetisation should be used to retire public debt. For the next fiscal 2023-24, the Budget has pegged disinvestment revenue at Rs 51,000 crore. The government has also scaled down the disinvestment target for the current fiscal to Rs 50,000 crore, from Rs 65,000 crore budgeted last year.
