Modi meets economic advisory council
2 min read 09 Jun 2023, 10:41 PM ISTThe meeting comes after official estimates showed last month FY23 economic growth beat expectations with a 7.2% expansion but risks such as a slowdown in developed markets and possibility of El Nino impact on monsoon showers could be a drag this fiscal.
PremiumNEW DELHI : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday met his economic advisory council (EAC-PM) led by Bibek Debroy, chairman of the council, to discuss the trajectory of the growth and evolving global and domestic factors influencing India’s performance, two persons with knowledge about the development said.
The meeting comes after official estimates showed last month FY23 economic growth beat expectations with a 7.2% expansion but risks such as a slowdown in developed markets and possibility of El Nino impact on monsoon showers could be a drag this fiscal.
The Modi administration, which took policy measures during the pandemic and afterwards with a focus on fiscal credibility and infrastructure creation rather than revenue spending in the form of tax cuts, is gearing up for national elections in less than a year and is on high alert about making policy interventions that may be needed in areas of rural incomes, jobs and price rise.
Earlier this week, the government raised the minimum support price for kharif crops for the FY24 marketing season as a safety net for farmers and last month it had announced a plan to help create a large number of decentralised grain storage capacity in the co-operative sector as part of efforts to improve the incomes of farmers. Farmers’ welfare is a key priority for the Modi administration.
EAC-PM’s suggestions to the prime minister are confidential, said one of the persons quoted above.
The suggestions of the council, which has eight members in addition to the chairman, forms a significant input to the government’s management of the economy.
Emails sent to the spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office and to the EAC-PM chairman on Friday evening remained unanswered at the time of publishing.
Debroy had earlier highlighted the need for states to improve their efficiency including in areas like labour and land so that India’s economy could achieve its potential of growing at about 8-8.5%. Speaking at Mint India Investment Summit in May, Debroy said while the aspirational growth rate for India would be about 8-8.5%, the economy is expected to expand in the range of about 6.5% over the next two to three years, which could accelerate further to 7% as the impact of the supply side reforms already undertaken kicks in and if one were to be optimistic, the growth could inch up to 7.5%.
Former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India Rakesh Mohan, former principal economic adviser to the finance minister Sanjeev Sanyal and Neelkanth Mishra, managing director, co-head of Equity Strategy, Asia Pacific, and India Strategist for Credit Suisse are the other members of EAC-PM.