Budget 2024: Here's Why Economic Survey Won't Be Presented On January 31

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Interim Budget 2024-25 on February 1. The finance minister also tables in Parliament the Economic Survey of India a day before the Budget is read.

The Economic Survey is the flagship annual document of the Ministry of Finance. It gives a detailed account of the performance of various sectors of the economy and the overall economic scenario of the country in the past year and provides an outline for the year ahead.

The Economic Survey is prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry under the overall guidance of the Chief Economic Adviser.

However, this year, the Economic Survey will not be presented during the Budget Session, which starts from January 31. This is because Sitharaman will present an interim budget as the Parliamentary elections are due.

The interim budget to be presented by Sitharaman will be a vote-on-account that will give the government authority to spend certain sums of money till a new government comes to office after the April-May general elections. The new government, which is likely to be formed around June, will come up with a final Budget for 2024-25 sometime in July.

The Economic Survey will come before the full budget after the general elections, according to CEA V Anantha Nageswaran.

Instead of the Economic Survey, the Ministry of Finance has released a report titled 'The Indian Economy - A Review'. The Review consists of two chapters and takes stock of the state of the Indian economy and its journey in the last 10 years and offers a brief sketch of the outlook for the economy in the coming years.

"This is not the Economic Survey of India prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs," the report states.

India is expected to become the third-largest economy in the world with a GDP of $5 trillion in the next three years and touch $7 trillion by 2030 on the back of continued reforms, the finance ministry said on Monday.

Ten years ago, India was the 10th largest economy in the world, with a GDP of $1.9 trillion at current market prices.

Today, it is the 5th largest with a GDP of $3.7 trillion (estimate FY24), despite the pandemic and despite inheriting an economy with macro imbalances and a broken financial sector, said the ministry's January 2024 review of the economy.

(With PTI inputs)