ECONOMIC SURVEY 2025 IS WORTH PRESERVING FOR THIS ONE PIECE OF ADVICE

The Survey calls on the private sector to partner the government in development

- Mythili Bhusnurmath

In an article for the Mint, chief economic adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran expressed the hope that the latest Economic Survey's proposed answers to the many challenges facing the economy—the course of key interest rates, energy transition, the drivers of global growth, impact of artificial intelligence on job markets, etc.—"will influence, illuminate and delineate [the government's] approaches to the more enduring challenges."

The CEA's fervent wish is reminiscent of what Samuel Johnson once said of second marriages. They represent 'the triumph of hope over experience.' The reason is simple. The Survey is authored by technocrats under the leadership of the CEA, who, unfettered by the compulsions of realpolitik, are free to make suggestions that most democratically elected governments would baulk at. Technocrats, after all, do not have to get re-elected; politicians do! The former can, therefore, condemn freebies and other handouts that impact the health of the fisc; the political class has to tread more warily.

This is not to say that Economic Surveys serve no purpose at all. On the contrary, apart from being the most authentic record of economic events that marked the fiscal year drawing to a close, Surveys are an invaluable testing ground for new ideas. Ideas that might seem radical when they are first made, but over a period of time, allow governments to act on them. And in the interregnum, offer us the much-needed space and time for public debate, without which no course correction is possible in a democracy.