Economic Survey 2021-22: The Economic Survey 2021-22 was tabled in Parliament on January 31, 2022, by Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Key Points:

• The survey, presented a day before the Union Budget, underlines the state of the economy and outlines suggestions for policy actions.
• The foundational theme of the survey is "Saving Lives and Livelihoods".
• For second year running, the Economic Survey was written under the cloud of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• The survey was prepared by a team led by Principal Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance (MoF) Sanjeev Sanyal.
• The survey this year is a single volume with separate set of statistical tables, as opposed to two volume formats seen in previous years.
• Beginning as a less than 50-page document in the 1950s, the Economic Survey has evolved over the years. Now, it is running into hundreds of pages, to provide a detailed analysis of the economy and recommend policy measures to deal with challenges.

Key Highlights of the Economic Survey 2021-22:

• This Economic Survey sets out to explain the alternative “Agile” approach that informed India’s economic response to the Covid-19 shock.
• This framework is based on feed-back loops, real-time monitoring of actual outcomes,flexible responses, safety-net buffers and so on.
• Planning matters in this framework but mostly for scenario analysis, identifying vulnerable sections, and understanding policy options rather than as a deterministic prediction of the flow of events.
• The last Economic Survey did briefly discuss this approach, but this time it is a central theme.

Growth Forecast:

• The survey forecasts economy to grow 8-8.5 per cent for the fiscal year 2022-23.
• The expected growth of the economy for the current year is 9.2 per cent
• Agriculture & allied sectors are also expected to grow by 3.9 per cent
• India's economic growth next fiscal year will still be the fastest among major economies.

How will India take on challenges?

• Overall, macro-economic stability indicators suggest that the Indian economy is well placed to take on the challenges of 2022-23.
• As per the survey, one of the reasons that the Indian economy is in a good position is because of its unique response strategy which has been listed below:
• India's agile policy response differed from the waterfall strategy of introducing front-loaded stimulus packages, adopted by most other countries in 2020.
• India’s economic response to challenges caused by covid-19 pandemic has been supply-side reforms, instead of demand management.
• Robust export growth and availability of fiscal space for ramping up capital spending, in a bid to support growth in fiscal year 2022-23.

Fiscal Development:

• The revenue receipts from the Central Government during April to November, 2021 have gone up by 67.2 percent year-on-year(YoY) as against an expected growth of 9.6 percent in the 2021-22 Budget Estimates (over 2020-21 Provisional Actuals).
• Gross Tax Revenue registers an increase of over 50% during April to November, 2021 in YoY terms.
• This performance is strong compared to pre-pandemic levels of 2019-2020 also.
• During April-November 2021, Capex has grown by 13.5 percent (YoY) with focus on infrastructure-intensive sectors.
• Sustained revenue collection and a targeted expenditure policy has contained the fiscal deficit for April to November, 2021 at 46.2 percent of BE.
• With the enhanced borrowings on account of COVID-19, the Central Government debt has gone up from 49.1 percent of GDP in 2019-20 to 59.3 percent of GDP in 2020-21, but is expected to follow a declining trajectory with the recovery of the economy.

Financial sector:

• Total net profit of public sector banks (PSBs) increased Rs 14,688 crore during the first half of 2020-21 to Rs 31,144 crore during the first half of 2021-22
• The Gross Non-Performing Advances (NPAs) ratio of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) declined from 11.2 per cent at the end of 2017-18 to 6.9 per cent at the end of September, 2021.
• Net Non-Performing Advances ratio declined from 6 percent to 2.2 per cent during the same period.
• Capital to risk-weighted asset ratio of SCBs continued to increase from 13 per cent in 2013-14 to 16.54 per cent at the end of September 2021.
• 89,066 crore was raised via 75 Initial Public Offering (IPO) issues in April-November 2021, which is much higher than in any year in the last decade.
• Repo rate was maintained at 4 per cent in 2021-22.
• RBI undertook various measures such as G-Sec Acquisition Programme and Special Long-Term Repo Operations to provide further liquidity.
• YoY Bank credit growth accelerated gradually in 2021-22 from 5.3 per cent in April 2021 to 9.2 per cent as on 31st December 2021.

External sector:

• India transformed from being among ‘Fragile Five’ nations to 4th largest forex reserve, giving policy room for manoeuvring.
• The survey showed that even during difficult times of lockdown, current account moved into surplus in Q1 of 2020-21.
• Capital flows have been strong and there has been a healthy balance of payments surplus, resulting in accumulation of foreign exchange reserves of $634 billion.

Inflation:

• The report highlights risks from global inflation and covid-19 pandemic-related disruptions.
• The consumer inflation was 5.6% in December 2021, the wholesale price inflation was reported in double digits for eight months.
• Imported inflation was exceptionally high through coal, oil, and gold.
• Wholesale inflation based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) rose to 12.5 per cent during 2021-22 (April to December). 
• This has been attributed to low base in the previous year, pick-up in economic activity, sharp increase in international prices of crude oil and other imported inputs, and High freight costs.
• Survey suggests that, India is in danger of breaking Reserve Bank of India’s (RBIs) target of 2-6% inflation.

About the Economic Survey of India:

• The Economic Survey of India is an annual document released by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India (GoI).
• This document is prepared by the Economics Division of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) under the guidance of the Chief Economic Advisor.
• Once prepared, the Survey is approved by the Finance Minister.
• The survey is usually presented a day before the Union Budget.
• The survey contains the most authoritative and updated source of data on India’s economy.
• It underlines the state of the economy and outlines suggestions for policy actions and it presents on the state of the economy in the past one year, the key challenges it anticipates, and their possible solutions.
• The first Economic Survey in India was presented in the year 1950-51.
• Up to 1964, it was presented along with the Union Budget. From 1964 onwards, it has been delinked from the Budget.

• e report highlights risks from global inflation and covid-19 pandemic-related disruptions.
• The consumer inflation was 5.6% in December 2021, the wholesale price inflation was reported in double digits for eight months.
• Imported inflation was exceptionally high through coal, oil, and gold.