So, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman revealed the Economic Survey of India for the fiscal year 2023-24 on July 22, 2024, kicking off the Monsoon session of the Indian Parliament. This big deal document is like a cheat sheet for how India's economy is doing and gives us a heads-up for the next Union Budget that's coming up on July 23, 2024. She talked a lot about how the economy's been pretty tough despite all the drama happening around the world.
Why This Survey is a Big Deal
This Survey is like a yearly diary entry for India's economy. It's put together by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs, with the Chief Economic Adviser keeping an eye on it. It breaks down into two main parts:
- How Things Are Going and What's Tough: It's like a report card for the economy, showing what's been happening and what's been hard.
- Looking Back at Last Year's Money Stuff: This part goes over the numbers from the financial year we just finished.
Important Stuff from the Economic Survey 2023-24
Guess on How Much the Economy Will Grow
They think India's economy will get bigger by 6.5% to 7% by March 2025. That's not as much as what the RBI thought (7.2%), but the Chief Economic Adviser, V. Anantha Nageswaran, is still hopeful we can hit that 7% target even with things like weird weather and money stuff in other countries being unpredictable.
What's Up with Prices Going Up (Inflation)
India's been pretty good at keeping inflation in check. It went down from 6.7% to 5.4% between the financial years. The thing that doesn't change much is that prices for stuff we eat went up a bit because of the weather messing with crops. But the RBI and IMF think it'll go down if the monsoon plays nice and there are no big surprises from outside India.
They're also updating how they measure inflation by changing the base year for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from 2012 to 2024, so we get a better picture of what's really happening.
How India's Wallet Looks
India's fiscal deficit got smaller, going from 6.4% to 5.6%. That's because people paid more taxes and there was extra money from the RBI. The government's been careful with their spending, and that's helped a lot.
Money Stuff and the Rest of the World
India's current account deficit isn't too bad at 0.7% of GDP. It's better than before because we're making more money from things like tech services while selling and buying goods hasn't been great due to the global market being all over the place.
How the Economy's Doing and What's Next
The survey says our economy is 20% bigger than it was in FY20, which is pretty cool. They're expecting more growth in the future, with fewer people out of work and more people joining in to make the economy go round.
The Bottom Line
This Economic Survey of India 2023-24 tells us that even though there's a lot going on, our economy is still looking pretty solid. We're just waiting to see what the next Union Budget has in store to keep this good vibe going.