A much-needed blueprint

The Economic Survey posits a clear development model to put India on a high-growth path

Over the last few years, particularly during the tenure of the previous Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian, the Economic Survey (ES) morphed from an exhaustive — and often tedious— account of the economy’s performance over the previous year into a more analytical and forward looking policy statement. 

For one thing, it attempted to join the dots and draw the proverbial “big picture” pertaining to some of the critical contemporary economic issues. The notion of a balance sheet recession, for instance, and its ramifications for economic revival were first formalised in the ES in 2015-16. The 2014-15 ES provided a