MUMBAI: The Economic Survey 2023-24 will be presented in Lok Sabha at 1 pm and in Rajya Sabha at 2 pm today. The Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) to the government of India Dr. V Anantha Nageswaran will address the media at 2:30 pm today.
The Economic Survey report is an annual document prepared under the guidance of the CEA, and is tabled in parliament before the budget. The Economic Survey Report has details about the economic progress of the country in the previous year.
Usually, the Economic survey is presented on January 31, a day before the budget is presented on 1 February. But this year being the election year, only vote on account was presented on February 1. Therefore, no economic survey report was presented in January.
The Economic Survey report has two parts – one detailed analysis of sectors and their performance in the previous financial year, and the second part contains charts and data pertaining to the past performance of the country.
This document is useful for policymakers, economists, policy analysts, business practitioners, government agencies, students, researchers, the media, and all those interested in the development in the Indian economy.
Under the former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian, the Economic Survey had started including future outlook on the economy and sectors, and also had detailed discussion on various themes impacting the Indian economy.
It has to be seen if the economic survey report this year remains a stock-taking exercise of the financial year gone by or if it makes any crystal-ball gazing of the economy in the future.
The one thing that the report has is the prediction for GDP growth in the new financial year. Sometimes this prediction differs from the one given in the budget. In one particular instance, when asked about the difference in the GDP prediction in the economic survey report and the Budget, the then finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had famously said that “the CEAs team is more optimistic about the economy than us”.