In pre-Google days, the Economic Survey was our only source of reliable data. Other than multiple data-tables, everything used to be pretty much unreadable. The format used to be the same and the chapters boringly identical year after year.
There was a whiff of welcome change in the 2012-13 Survey when it carried a chapter titled ‘Seizing the Demographic Dividend’. The chapter begins like this: “Policymakers are usually focused on short-run economic management issues. But the short run has to be a bridge to the long run. The central long-run question facing India is where will good jobs come from? Productive jobs are vital for growth. And a good job is the best form of inclusion.”
That was the final survey authored by the then Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) and acclaimed economist Kaushik Basu.
From Boring to Well-Researched Papers
However, the credit for catapulting the Economic Survey to a different level altogether goes to Arvind Subramanian, the country’s CEA from 2014 to 2018. All the surveys written under his leadership had his stamp all over.
The very first survey under his supervision had chapters like ‘Wiping Every Tear From Every Eye: The JAM Number Trinity Solution’; ‘Putting Public Investment on Track: The Rail Route to Higher Growth’; and ‘What to Make in India? Manufacturing or Services?’
The Survey of 2015-16 had a chapter called ‘Bounties for the Well-Offs’ which argued against the continuation of the extant subsidy regime. It said: “Subsidies for the poor tend to attract policy attention. But a number of policies provide benefits to the well-off. We estimate these benefits for the small savings schemes and the tax/subsidy policies on cooking gas, railways, power, aviation turbine fuel, gold and kerosene, making assumptions about the definition of “well-off” and the nature of neutral policies. We find that together these schemes and policies provide a bounty to the well-off of about Rs 1 lakh crore. We highlight that policies that are based on providing tax incentives will, in India, benefit not the middle class but those at the very top end of the income distribution.”
Empowerment of Women as the Theme of Economic Survey
Subramanian perhaps saved the best for the last: the Survey of 2017-18, which had a pink cover to emphasise the theme of women’s empowerment. It addressed the issue of the marked preference of sons in the country and argued that, “the challenge of gender is long-standing, probably going back millennia, so all stakeholders are collectively responsible for its resolution. India must confront the societal preference, even meta-preference for a son, which appears inoculated to development.”
Examining the legacy of Subramanian as the CEA, his colleagues in the Finance Ministry wrote that, “At the core, as Subramanian mentioned in an interview, the primary job of the office of the Chief Economic Adviser is to ‘feed the ecosphere of ideas and policies.’
The credit goes to Subramanian and his team for introducing multiple ideas and catchphrases in the system. Phrases like ‘twin balance sheet problems’ with Indian characteristics, ‘competitive and cooperative federalism’, and ‘JAM trinity’ became instant hits.
The survey presented by Arvind Subramanian’s successor KV Subramanian seems to have taken this legacy of ideas forward. Have a look at the names of some of the chapters:
- Policy for Homo Sapiens, Not Homo Economicus: Leveraging the Behavioural Economics of “Nudge”
- Data “Of the People, By the People, For the People”
- Ending Matsyanyaya: How To Ramp Up Capacity In The Lower Judiciary
- From Swachh Bharat to Sundar Bharat via Swasth Bharat : An Analysis of the Swachh Bharat Mission
KV Subramanian’s Survey Offers New Ideas
The chapter on behavioural nudge advocates “an ambitious agenda for social change”:
- From BBBP (Beti Bachao Beti Padhao) to BADLAV (Beti Aapki Dhan Lakshmi Aur Vijay Lakshmi)
- From Swachh Bharat to Sundar Bharat
- From “Give it up” for the LPG subsidy to “Think about the Subsidy”
- From tax evasion to tax compliance
The chapter essentially argues to influence people’s behaviour to arrive at a goal. For instance, to increase tax compliance, it suggests that the “top ten highest taxpayers within a district can be highlighted and accorded due recognition.” This may take the form of expedited boarding privileges at airports, fast-lane privileges on roads and toll booths, special “diplomatic” type lanes at immigration counters, etc.
Further, the “highest taxpayers over a decade can be recognised by naming important buildings, monuments, roads, trains, initiatives, schools and universities, hospitals and airports in their name.”
On achieving gender parity, it argues that, “instead of highlighting the number of top companies that have few women on their boards, it is more effective to highlight how many do. Similarly, showing how prevalent and pervasive gender based violence is, runs the risk of normalising it; instead emphasising on how many people are not perpetrators or reinforcing injunctive norms against it can be more helpful in shaping correct norms towards gender equality.”
You may agree or disagree but the heart of the idea is worth debating.
The chapter on ramping up capacity in the lower judiciary suggests that, “a case clearance rate of 100 per cent (i.e. zero accumulation) can be achieved with the addition of merely 2,279 judges in the lower courts and 93 in High Courts even without efficiency gains. This is already within sanctioned strength and only needs filling vacancies.” The very thought that it can be achieved is reassuring.
The chapter on data makes a provocative suggestion while advocating that, “data can be created as a public good within the legal framework of data privacy. In thinking about data as a public good, care must also be taken to not impose the elite’s preference of privacy on the poor, who care for a better quality of living the most.”
Better data for effective implementation of schemes is a welcome suggestion. But is privacy only a preference of the elite?
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