ECONOMIC SURVEY 2021-2022

Published: 31st Jan, 2022

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey 2021-2022 in the parliament, for the second year running, the Economic Survey was written under the cloud of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Economic Survey assumes great significance for UPSC Examination, and at all the stages (Prelims, Mains and Interview). However, reading the entire document is a lengthy process and time consuming also. Thus, GS Score attempts to break down the survey analysis and share the best of it for our students.

GS Score Economic Survey Summary helps the students by providing them a quick summary of the Survey and also adding to their values with:

Prelims Question
Mains Questions
Important Key-words
Infographic and creative images

The Economic Survey is a report card of the economy. It is tabled in Parliament by the finance minister one day before the Union Budget presentation.

Brief background

The Survey was first published in 1950-51 and was initially part of the Budget documents.
- It was less than 50 pages in the 1950s and contained a brief outline of economic developments of the previous year. The Survey of 1957-58 had just 38 pages.
It was primarily descriptive and contained little in the way of analysis and policy prescriptions.
From 1958-59, the length of the survey started increasing with the introduction of more charts and tables.

In India, the Economic Survey prepares the background framework for the Union Budget. It facilitates a bird’s eye view of the trends noticed in different sectors over the previous year like agriculture, manufacturing, employment, infrastructure, prices, exports, imports, foreign exchange reserve, and money supply for example. The various objectives of the Economic Survey in India can be summed up under three heads:

Reviewing the country’s economic development over the past 12 months.
Summarising how the different development projects of the country perform.
Highlighting the government’s policy initiatives.

Who prepares it?

Traditionally, the survey is prepared by the CEA. However, this year it is being prepared by principal economic adviser and other officials as the post of CEA remained vacant after Krishnamurthy Subramaniam's term ended in December.
The government appointed Dr. V Anantha Nageswaran as the new CEA on January 28.

This year, the Economic Survey came out in a single volume consisting of following chapters-

Chapter	Title
Chapter-1	State of the Economy
Chapter-2	Fiscal Developments
Chapter-3	External Sector
Chapter-4	Monetary Management and Financial Intermediation
Chapter-5	Prices and Inflation
Chapter-6	Sustainable Development and Climate Change
Chapter-7	Agriculture and Food Management
Chapter-8	Industry and Infrastructure
Chapter-9	Services
Chapter-10	Social Infrastructure and Employment