New Delhi: Beginning as a document of less than 50-pages in the 1950s, economic surveys have developed for years, running to hundreds of pages providing detailed economic analysis and recipes policy steps to face challenges.
The latest survey prepared by a team led by Principal Economic Advisers Sanyal is a single volume with a separate set of statistical tables as against two volume formats seen in previous years.
This survey was first published in 1950-1951 and was originally part of the budget document.
The document was less than 50 pages in 1950 and contained a brief information from economic development from the previous year.
For example, surveys from 1957-1958 have only 38 pages.
It was especially descriptive and contained slightly on road analysis and prescription policy, the document said submitted by Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Monday.
“Economic surveys have been through many evolution for decades,” he said.
From 1958-1959, the survey length began to increase with more introduction of graphs and tables.
A Hindi translation also seems to have started around this time.
Document ambitions increased significantly in the sixties.
The survey of 1962-1963 was divided into two parts where the first part was focused on broader economic development while the second part provided a basic analysis of different sectors.
“The following year, the economic survey was separated from the budget and presented the previous day as a stand-alone document.
This is the first survey to see the introduction of statistical attachments.
The sixties also saw several experiments with the format,” said the survey.
In a few years, parts are carried out with themes such as recession and size of revival, inflation control, and food shortages.
In other years, it was done with sectoral parts such as industry, agriculture and price.
In 1970, the length of the economic survey had passed 150 pages with a detailed table of tables.
This format is more refined in the seventies and eighties with a part that turns into a chapter.
“This is a phase that develops a broad format recognized today.
The 1980s saw a consistent increase in the length of the document with the introduction of a new chapter.
In 1990, the length of the economic survey had reached close by 250 pages, including statistical attachments,” he added.
The Indian economy experienced a major crisis and the next reform in 1991, and the 1991-1992 economic survey was awaited.
This is the first survey brought out in two volumes even though the first volume is a short book of 27 pages that highlight the macroeconomic problems faced by the country when the second volume reviews various sectors in detail.
In the following years, surveys return to one volume with several modifications in the number of chapters.
The beginning of the 21st century saw another transformation of economic surveys with the introduction of better graphics and brighter colors.
The survey length, meanwhile, crossed 380 pages with the early 2000s.
In 2011-12, the document was 485 pages spread over thirteen chapters and statistical attachments.
In 2013-14, appendicitis of statistics is separated and published as a separate volume.
The following year, the survey was presented as two volumes: Volume 1 had a number of chapters handling topical policy issues while volume 2 traditional economic surveys were carried out along with statistical attachments.
This format continued until last year with the length of the document continued to rise.
In addition, efforts made in the last three surveys to ensure that the volume of 1 chapter holds a broad theme than appearing as a stand-alone paper.
Economic Survey 2020-21 consists of 335 pages in volume 1, 368 pages in volume 2 and statistical attachments from 174 pages – a total of 877 pages.
“The two volume format that does not allow space to bring new ideas and themes but, in almost 900 pages, it also becomes heavy.
It also feels that the Thematic Chapter Volume 1 is inadequate related to the Sectoral Chapter Volume 2.” By by Therefore, this year’s survey converts for one volume plus separate volume for statistical attachments, “said Sanyal in the introduction to the survey.
Along with sectoral chapters, the new chapter has been added which shows the use of satellite and geo-spatial images to measure various economic phenomena -.
Urbanization, infrastructure, environmental impact, agriculture practice and so on ideas have a separate volume for statistical attachments is to provide a different identity as an authentic data source.
“It is expected that it will develop in the next few years to enter a new type of socio -Conomer data that is in line with the emphasis on the feedback approach, “he added.