As multiple crises hit, a case for fresh economic assessment to Parliament

Given the Covid-19 pandemic, and now the war in Europe, economists assert there could be a case for reviving the practice for the sake of fiscal transparency at least temporarily

From 2004 to 2016, the Union Finance Ministry used to table in Parliament what is known as the mid-year economic review.

The purpose of this document, which was usually released in December and was drafted by the Chief Economic Advisor, was to assess the domestic and global macro-economic conditions, and the performance of the central government in terms of revenue and expenditure in the first half of the year (April-September). The finnace ministry would then determine how all this would impact the targets laid out in the previous budget, including fiscal deficit and gross domestic product.

Former CEA Arvind Subramanian