Rajiv Kumar's record is of getting things done

His colleagues see him as a facilitator. Rajiv Kumar, 60, former finance secretary and secretary, banking and financial services who was appointed Election Commissioner last week, will have to fall back on this trait as he steers the country through a general election in 2024. He will retire in 2025. The critical Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal Assembly elections will fall during his tenure. 

Kumar’s colleagues describe him as affable but one who neither forgets a slight nor forgives easily. He worked under Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyal as well as Nirmala Sitharaman in the finance ministry, where he took charge as finance secretary in July 2019. 

Kumar demonstrated his reputation for getting things done in the very first few weeks of his tenure in the finance ministry. He took charge at a tricky time — when relations between North Block and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had soured over the proportion of the central bank’s reserve that should be transferred to the central exchequer. The government claimed the RBI was overestimating its capital reserves requirement; the central bank disagreed on various counts and the controversy morphed into a larger and very public debate on central bank autonomy.  

The casualty in this controversy was Kumar’s predecessor, Subhash Chandra Garg, who had been the government’s somewhat abrasive voice on the need for higher transfers. In a dramatic development in mid-July, Garg was abruptly transferred to the power ministry after he submitted a dissent note on the recommendations of a panel headed by former central bank governor Bimal Jalan that had been set up to review the RBI’s economic capital framework. 

The Jalan committee had recommended a phased transfer of reserves but Garg’s dissent note had reportedly pressed the government’s position for a larger one-time transfer. The prospect of its own nominee submitting a dissent note to the recommendations of a government-appointed panel proved embarrassing enough for the government to transfer Garg, who took early retirement because he considered the power ministry post a “demotion”. 

Within a month, the government accepted the Jalan committee’s recommendations (with the dissent note withdrawn). It was Kumar who was reportedly instrumental in smoothing over relations between the Centre and the RBI, and Rs 1.76 trillion of the central bank’s surplus — about half the government’s original demand — was transferred to the exchequer without a hitch. 

On the other departments in his charge, Kumar was similarly accommodating. Three insurance companies were to be capitalised and merged into one huge entity during his tenure. The matter was ready for cabinet approval. But it now appears to have been given a quiet burial. Kumar was as proud of the fact that during his tenure, 10 banks were to be merged into four. Even as the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had second thoughts about the mega merger — it was not convinced about the earlier merger of Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank — Kumar ensured that the amalgamation of 10 state-owned banks was approved before he retired as finance secretary. Bank mergers are not simple, say officials in the finance ministry. You need to know the system quite thoroughly to be able to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. 

When he superannuated from government some months ago, Kumar was quite clear that he was not going to retire like some of his predecessors —Hasmukh Adhia, also a finance secretary, had decided to relocate to pursue spirituality and yoga (in which subject he has a degree). Kumar, who is from the 1984 batch of the Indian Administrative Service (Jharkhand cadre), had said he was open to another stint in government. The job he was offered — Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) — was apparently a stopgap. He now has the post every retiring bureaucrat wants. 

Kumar is an avid trekker and traveller. He especially wants to visit religious pilgrim spots like Kailash Mansarovar — in fact, there was a big picture of the lake beside his desk in his office. Given the election calendar ahead of him, he may want to make that pilgrimage soon.