Esther Duflo, Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian on economic advisory panel, says Tamil Nadu guv

Chennai: An Economic Advisory Council to the Chief Minister would be constituted with leading experts including Nobel laureate professor Esther Duflo, Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit said on Monday in his customary address to the Assembly. The council is to prepare a roadmap for “rapid” and inclusive economic growth of the state, Purohit said in his first address to the House, which also marks the commencement of the first session after the formation of the DMK government last month. “In recent years, we have seen a slowdown in Tamil Nadu’s economic growth rate. This government will make all outefforts to reverse this trend and usher in a period of rapid economic growth…,” he said, announcing that the panel would be set up. Besides Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, former chief economic advisor to the Union government, Arvind Subramanian, development economist professor Jean Dreze and former Uunion finance secretary S Narayan would be part of the Economic Advisory Council, he said. Based on the council’s recommendations the government would take steps to revitalise economy and see that thebenefits of growth reached all segments of society, he said. The fiscal health of the state is a cause for concernand the government would focus on improving it and bringingdown debt burden and a white paper on Tamil Nadu’s financeswould be released in July. There could be no social justice when there is higheconomic inequality and stratification. Inclusive growth is government’s priority and growth and progress must benefit allsections of society and not just the top of the economicpyramid, the Governor noted.