Economic Survey 2014-15 Highlights

After a nearly 12-quarter phase of deceleration, real GDP has been growing at 7.2 per cent on average since 2013-14, based on the new growth estimates of the Central Statistics Office. Notwithstanding the new estimates, the balance of evidence suggests that India is a recovering, but not yet a surging, economy. From a cross-country perspective, a Rational Investor Ratings Index (RIRI) which combines indicators of macro-stability with growth illustrates that India ranks amongst the most attractive investment destinations. It ranks well above the mean for its investment grade category (BBB), and also above the mean for the investment category above it on the basis of the new growth estimates. Several reforms have been undertaken and more are on the anvil.

The introduction of the GST and expanding direct benefit transfers can be game-changers. Structural shifts in the inflationary process are underway due to lower oil prices, deceleration in agriculture prices and wages, and dramatically improved household inflation expectations. Going forward inflation is likely to remain in the 5.5 per cent range, creating space for easing of monetary conditions.

In the short run, growth will receive a boost from the cumulative impact of reforms, lower oil prices, likely monetary policy easing facilitated by lower inflation and improved inflationary expectations, and forecasts of a normal monsoon in 2015-16.

Using the new estimate for 2014-15 as the base, GDP growth at constant market prices is expected to accelerate to between 8.1 and 8.5 per cent in 2015-16. Medium-term prospects will be conditioned by the “balance sheet syndrome with Indian characteristics” that has the potential to hold back rapid increases in private sector investment. Private investment must be the engine of long-run growth. However, there is a case for reviving targeted public investment as an engine of growth in the short run to complement and crowd-in private investment.

India can balance the short-term imperative of boosting public investment to revitalise growth with the need to maintain fiscal discipline. Expenditure control, and expenditure switching from consumption to investment, will be the key. The outlook is favourable for the current account deficit and it’s financing. A likely surfeit, rather than scarcity, of foreign capital will complicate exchange rate management. Reconciling the benefits of these flows with their impact on exports and the current account remains an important challenge going forward.

India faces an export challenge, reflected in the fact that the share of manufacturing and services exports in GDP has stagnated in the last five years. The external trading environment is less benign in two ways: partner country growth and their absorption of Indian exports has slowed, and mega-regional trade agreements being negotiated by the major trading nations in Asia and Europe threaten to exclude India and place its exports at a competitive disadvantage.

India is increasingly young, middleclass, and aspirational but remains stubbornly male. Several indicators suggest that gender inequality is persistent and high. In the short run, the renewed emphasis on family planning targets, backed by misaligned incentives, is undermining the health and reproductive autonomy of women. India must adhere to the mediumterm fiscal deficit target of 3 per cent of GDP.

This will provide the fiscal space to insure against future shocks and also to move closer to the fiscal performance of its emerging market peers. India must also reverse the trajectory of recent years and move toward the golden rule of eliminating revenue deficits and ensuring that, over the cycle, borrowing is only for capital formation.

Expenditure control combined with recovering growth and the introduction of the GST will ensure that medium term targets are comfortably met. In the short run, the need for accelerated fiscal consolidation is lessened by the dramatically changed macro-circumstances and the less-than-optimal nature of pro-cyclical policy.

The ability to do so will be conditioned by the recommendations of the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC). Nevertheless, to ensure fiscal credibility and consistency with mediumterm goals, the process of expenditure control to reduce the fiscal deficit should be initiated.

At the same time, the quality of expenditure needs to be shifted from consumption, by reducing subsidies, towards investment. Finally, implementing the FFC recommendations will lead to states accounting for a large share of total tax revenue.

This has the important implication that, going forward, India’s public finances must be viewed at the consolidated level and not just at the level of the central government. If recent trends in state-level fiscal management continue, the fiscal position at the consolidated level will be on a sustainable path.

S The debate is not about whether but how best to provide support to the poor and vulnerable. The government subsidises a wide variety of goods and services with the aim of making them affordable for the poor, including- rice, wheat, pulses, sugar, railways, kerosene, LPG, naphtha, iron ore, fertiliser, electricity, water. S The direct fiscal cost of these select subsidies is roughly Rs 378,000 crore or 4.2 per cent of 2011-12 GDP. This is roughly how much it would cost to raise the expenditure of every household to the level of a 35th percentile household (well above the 21.9 per cent Tendulkar Committee poverty line).

S Are these subsidies effectively targeted at the poor? Unfortunately, subsidies can sometimes be regressive and suffer from leakages. For example, electricity subsidies by definition only help electrified households. Even in the case of kerosene, 41 per cent of PDS kerosene is lost as leakage and only 46 per cent of the remaining 59 per cent is consumed by households that are poor.

S The JAM Number Trinity – Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, Mobile – can enable the State to transfer financial resources to the poor in a progressive manner without leakages and with minimal distorting effects.