<b>Ashok K Lahiri:</b> Economic Survey in retrospect

The Survey would be presented early this year, but taking it too seriously has its own risks

The Union Budget for 2017-18 will be presented not on February 28, but February 1. The expectation is that the Economic Survey for 2016-17 will be released on January 31. 

Advancing the date by a month has data implications. The “advance estimate” of gross domestic product (GDP) for the current year is a critical input for both the Budget and the Survey. This estimate for 2016-17 presumably will be shared with the Ministry of Finance by January 7, 2017. It will have even less hard data behind it than the earlier years’ estimates made available a month later. Analysis of