New Delhi: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has tabled the Economic Survey of India 2023-24 today, July 22, as the Budget Session gets underway.
The Economic Survey acts as a “report card” of the past financial year for the government. This year’s document is 522 pages. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed that the survey “highlights the prevailing strengths of our economy and also showcases the outcomes of the various reforms our Government has brought,” several commentators have pointed out that the survey has not reflected the realities of the economic situation that the country is grappling with.
Meanwhile, Sitharaman will present the Union Budget for 2024-25 tomorrow, July 23. This will be the new government’s first budget and also the first in which a diminished Bharatiya Janata Party will offer a fiscal route that will satisfy its key allies in the National Democratic Alliance.
Key points
In the Economic Survey, the government has claimed that the outlook for the Indian economy is “bright” and that the economy is expected to grow at 6.5-7% in the financial year of 2025.
The survey has claimed that the Indian economy has recovered and expanded since the pandemic. The GDP in real terms in FY24 was 20% higher than it was in FY20, it has further stressed.
Read The Wire’s Alternative ‘Economic Survey’ here.
The survey is also positive on the real estate sector, claiming that it has accounted for over 7% of the overall gross value added in the past decade.
“We need the Union and state governments to act together,” Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran said in the press conference on the survey.
Escalation in geopolitical conflicts and its impact may influence the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy stance, it has noted. Nageswaran said at the presser that protective action has gone up globally, and that is something “we need to be mindful of.”
“We need to chart our part to Viksit Bharat amidst these headwinds,” he said.
RBI expects inflation to be 4.5% in FY25 and 4.1% in FY26, the government says.
The survey also notes that food inflation has increased to 7.5% in FY24, from 6.6% in FY23. An analysis on The Wire notes that “inflation in the vegetable segment is the highest at 26% currently.”
The government has claimed that GDP growth is steady and that household savings and physical assets have improved. “Households are not in distress,” the CEA said in the press conference, blaming the fact that national data does not record financial assets versus liabilities towards the feeling that the latter is more.
The survey calls for agricultural reforms and says the sector is plagued by structural issues that have implications for India’s economic growth.
Reactions
“India is in its most precarious and difficult economic situation in many years. The Economic Survey 2023-24 might present a cherry-picked view of the economy, but we hope that tomorrow’s Budget faces up to the country’s realities,” the Congress said, posting a statement from party veteran Jairam Ramesh on X.
The statement from India’s main opposition party notes that food inflation is at its highest possible levels and that post-COVID growth too has largely been unequal.
Congress has also said that the Modi government has abused the import-export policies of the nation and that residential real estate sales in India are only in 2023 reaching back to the levels witnessed in 2013.
“The Economic Survey also virtually admits the failure of the Union Government’s policymaking with regards to generating private investment,” it said.
Highlighting the sad state of nutrition and food, the Congress statement notes that “The Economic Survey has flagged that we must create nearly 80 lakh jobs each year for the next 20 years,” but adds that “what is not said, however, is that the Union Government’s current strategy is entirely reliant on data manipulation and pakodanomics.”
Many others have highlighted passages in the survey that appear to blame social media and screen time as things that undermine India’s “productivity”.
Social media, screen time, sedentary lifestyle undermining India’s productivity
Hello, Chief Economic Advisor, was the survey written while you were holidaying in Norway? #EconomicSurvey pic.twitter.com/mFagYP7wGI
— Arindam Majumder (@ari_maj) July 22, 2024
4) Social media, unhealthy food a lethal mix that undermines health, productivity: Say what? The country needs a survey that outlines the importance of a census, the reality and need of food rations. Not an instagram influencer post. Who is this written for and about?
— Mitali Mukherjee (@MitaliLive) July 22, 2024
