Economic Survey 2021: Govt sees hope, Opposition a farce

BENGALURU: Describing the challenges the Indian economy faced as it slowly emerged out of the Covid shadow, the Economic Survey 2020-21 presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday highlighted how the focus was to save lives and livelihoods.

While the document was hailed as a beacon of hope by the BJP, the opposition described it as an elaborate attempt at covering up failures of the Modi government. Experts, deeming the report optimistic, pointed at the Economic Survey hinting at possible expansion in expenditure to achieve projected growth. 

“We went through a contraction due to the complete lockdown. Since we are a developing economy, we have a wide scope for recovery. We will reach pre-Covid growth rates soon. Since many of the economies are still shut down, we may face repercussions in terms of supply, trade and logistics, but with reforms, addressing bottlenecks and emphasising on priority areas, we can infuse money into the economy,” said Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan. 

The Congress saw the Economic Survey’s detailed and repeated reference to the pandemic-related challenges as a justification to the ill-planned lockdown that devastated the economy and drove migrant workers to despair. “It ignores worsening nutrition, education, and health outcomes among India’s poor, and barely considers the impact of large-scale unemployment and inflation that disproportionately hurts them.

It ignores how India’s states have been affected by the central government’s anti-federal moves, especially over GST and farm laws. Finally, by creating a convenient scapegoat in rating agencies, it seeks to avoid responsibility for the Government’s economic mismanagement and data fudging that have triggered the slowdown in the economy and hurt India’s international credibility,” said Prof Rajeev Gowda, Chairman, AICC Research Department.

Economists believe that the survey is optimistic but has left a lot to desire, especially in sector-wise equity. “Contribution to GDP growth comes most from services, then agriculture followed by industry and trade. The survey should have focused on trade. We are speaking of being World’s largest pharmacy and vaccine supplier but what is its contribution to the aggregate GDP? That has been left out,” pointed out Prof R S Deshpande, former Director, Institute for Social and Economic Change. “Sitharaman has indicated that she won’t bother about deficits. She wants to explore the fiscal expansionary path,” he said.