New Delhi:
India's economic growth will depend upon the ability to provide affordable, reliable and sustainable energy to citizens and the country is required to raise per capita energy consumption by at least 2.5 times to increase per capita income by USD 5000, the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament said Thursday.
The survey said India has the potential for USD 30 billion annual investment in renewables in next decade and even beyond that in view of its ambitious target of having 175 GW of clean energy by 2022. As per the survey, India has to quadruple its per capita energy consumption if the country aims to rise in HDI (human development index).
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.
The incumbent CEA has not commented on the findings of the research papers even as government bodies like EAC to the Prime Minister have not agreed with the conclusion.
The survey comes weeks after Subramanian's predecessor Arvind Subramanian in a research paper claimed India was overestimating its economic growth rate by up to 2.5 percentage points.
Day before presenting Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey in Parliament today.
Despite India’s outstanding growth in the last two decades, low pay and wage inequality remain serious obstacles towards achieving inclusive growth.
Economic Survey 2019 provisionally estimates 2.9 percent growth rate for the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors.
Economic Survey 2019 projects 283.4 million tons of food grains production for 2018-19.
The decline in the growth of rural wages seems to have bottomed out and has started to increase since mid-2018. The growth in rural wages should help shoot rural demand.
The economic survey pegged fiscal deficit for 2018-19 at 5.8 per cent, up from revised budget estimate of 3.4 per cent.
The GDP growth projection is higher than 6.8 per cent growth rate in the financial year ended on March 31.
According to the survey, India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to clock 7 per cent growth rate in the financial year 2019-20.
