Voice in the wilderness

In his preface to the Economic Survey (ES) 2024-25, his sensible advice was "Get out of the way" and "deregulate".

- P Chidambaram

There are 13 chapters in the ES, but I shall pick only four to illustrate what was the CEA's recommendation and what was the government's response (or non-response).

Chapter 1 (State of the Economy) underlined the causes of the slowdown and recommended deregulation and structural reforms at the grassroots level to improve competitiveness. The FM took the opposite route. She threw more money into current schemes and announced 7 Schemes, 8 Missions, and 4 Funds. There was no specific proposal for deregulation; nor were any steps outlined to improve the competitiveness of any sector. She could only announce a High Level Committee for Regulatory Reforms to review non-financial sector regulations, implying that the financial sector will remain under government's control and no review will be made.