This is how much it may cost 'India' to be renamed 'Bharat'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the G20 leaders at the opening session of the G20 Summit on September 9.

Widespread speculation about India being renamed to Bharat has not only ignited a heated debate among politicians, it has also had experts calculating what the financial ramifications of such a rebranding exercise will cost the exchequer. And, according to an intellectual property lawyer who devised a method to calculate the approximate cost of renaming a country, the estimate comes to a whopping Rs 14,304 crore, reported Outlook Business.

South Africa's Darren Oliver came up with the formula in 2018 when Swaziland was renamed to Eswatini to break away from colonial vestiges. His estimates put the cost of renaming the African country at $60 million. He applied the same method for India using its revenue as a factor. According to Oliver, the average marketing budget of a large enterprise is around 6 percent of its total revenue while rebranding exercises cost up to 10 percent of the company’s overall marketing budget.

For the fiscal year 2022-23, India's revenue receipts were worth Rs 23.84 lakh crore, including tax and non-tax revenue, and according to Oliver's formula, for "India" to become "Bharat", it will cost (0.006*23.84 lakh crore) Rs 14,304 crore.

The sum is almost equal to what the Centre spends every month on its food security programme that feeds 80 crore Indians, the Outlook Business report stated.

While it is uncertain whether the Centre is intent on going ahead with the name-changing exercise, for now, foreign heads of states have been attending the G20 Summit events with the President of Bharat as a G20 dinner invitation from President Droupadi Murmu described her position as "President of Bharat". Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also identified as the leader representing "Bharat" at the G20 Summit that commenced on September 9, as he made his opening remarks at the beginning of the two-day meeting.