Bhagwati, NK Singh, Kelkar honoured with TIOL awards
NEW DELHI: Former president of India, Ram Nath Kovind, on Saturday conferred the prestigious TIOL Kautilya Global Award 2023 on professor of economics & law at Columbia University, Jagdish N Bhagwati, at an event attended by several distinguished economists and policymakers in the national capital.
Kovind also bestowed TIOL Fiscal Heritage Award 2023 on two prominent policymakers: Vijay Kelkar, who was chairman of 13th Finance Commission, and NK Singh, who headed the 15th Finance Commission, for their “profound and unparalleled contribution to the field of economics and impact as well as imprint on policy making”, according to the award’s citation.
Singh and Kelkar both headed finance commissions. The Singh-led 15th finance commission was notable for factoring in climate change.
Those present at the awardgiving ceremony included Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh, former deputy chairman of erstwhile Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, vice chairperson of the Niti Aayog Suman Bery, chairman of the 16th Finance Commission Arvind Panagariya, Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand and Tamil Nadu minister for IT, Palanivel Thiagarajan, among others.
Delivering his acceptance speech, former bureaucrat, chair of the 15th Finance Commission and policymaker, NK Singh, said there could be no greater privilege than to have received the Fiscal Heritage award from the hands of the former president. “It was under his pen that I was appointed to be the Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission and had the privilege of submitting two reports to him.” Singh said the concept of “fiscal deficits” in India is of recent origin, which earlier were mainly treated as “budget deficits”.
“This only commenced after the adoption of the Sukhamoy Chakravarty Report in 1982, which recommended fiscal deficit for the purpose of reporting,” Singh said. In his speech, Singh highlighted some substantive issues related to fiscal federalism and inclusive growth in the world’s fifth largest economy.
“It was only in 2000, quite amazingly, that Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Bill was introduced in Parliament during the period of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and enacted in 2003,” he said.
Kelkar said he accepted this award with “great humility as I am particularly mindful that the previous year’s recipient of this award was India’s former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh”.