Nirmala Sitharaman tables Economic Survey 2019: What is the annual survey and how to download it

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey for 2018-19 in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, a day before her maiden Budget on Friday. The government has pegged the growth rate for the current fiscal at 7 percent, marginally up from the five-year low of 6.8 percent recorded in the previous fiscal. The fiscal deficit estimate for 2018-19 has been retained at 3.4 percent of the GDP, same as projected in the interim Budget. What is Economic Survey:  The Economic Survey is an annual document that reviews the developments in the economy over the previous 12 months. The document summarises the performance on major development programmes, highlights the policy initiatives of the government and analyses the prospects of the economy in the short to medium-term. [caption id=“attachment_4019069” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Nirmala Sitaraman. AFP[/caption] Every year, the Economic Survey is tabled in the Parliament a day before the Union Budget. Since 2015, the survey document essentially consists of two parts. One part consists of commentary on the state of the economy, which is released before the Union Budget. The other part carries key economic statistics and data, which is tabled in July or August. This split in the presentation took effect after the Union Budget was moved from the last working day of February to the first day of the month in 2017. The flagship document is prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs, which comes under the Finance Ministry, and released under the guidance of the Chief Economic Advisor (CEA). The Economic Survey serves as a useful policy document since it also contains policy ideas, key statistics on economic parameters and in-depth research on macro and sectoral trends. Often, the survey serves as a policy guideline for the Union Budget. However, its recommendations are not binding on the government. More often than not, the policy recommendations presented in the document have not made their way into the Budget proposals. How to download the Economic Survey 2019  Economic survey 2019 can be downloaded in pdf format from here. The Economic Survey 2019 has two volumes and a statistical appendix. The Survey is available in both English and Hindi. You will also get the previous years’ economic survey books on the Budget website.