Two days before Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's interim budget speech, the Department of Economic Affairs issued a report highlighting the government's achievements in the past decade on Monday, January 29.
This report is in place of the annual economic survey. The Chief Economic Advisor, V. Anantha Nageswaran announced that there will be no economic survey this year, which is generally presented by the Finance Minister a day before the Union Budget announcement. The CEA stated that the reason behind it is that 2024 is an election year.
These are some of the top takeaways from the report:
India's gross domestic product (GDP) would grow faster than 7.2% in FY24, even as the world economy struggles to grow at more than 3%.
This would be the third straight year when the Indian economy would grow by more than 7%.
In the last decade, an increase in public sector investment, a healthy financial sector, and strong non-food credit growth have enabled the growth of the Indian economy at a moderate rate.
India is also the third-largest fintech economy in the world, after the USA and the UK.
India has also overtaken Hong Kong to become the fourth-largest stock market in the world. This has been credited to interest from domestic and global investors and sustained IPO activity.
With the PM Jan Dhan Yojana, women bank account holders have increased from 53% in 2015-16 to 78.6% in 2019-21.
The female labour force participation rate (LFPR) hiked from 23.3% in 2017-18 to 37% in 2022–23. Through the Skill India Mission, Start-Up India and Stand-Up India, female participation is also growing in human capital formation.
The female Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education has quadrupled from 6.7% in FY01 to 27.9% in FY21. While the GER has more than doubled from 24.5% to 58.2% between FY05 and FY22.
The adoption of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), along with the unification of domestic markets and increased incentives for production, has enhanced economic efficiency and subsequently reduced logistics costs.
