Rajan's Economic Survey may present pointers for Budget

A lot of people in the government are very careful with sort of growth projections as far as the current financial year is concerned. The previous economic survey, the one that Kaushik Basu prepared had got a growth outlook for the current year horribly wrong.

However, the value and merit of the economic survey is in some ways the summary that it offers for the economy but more importantly directions and pointers towards to what could be the government’s agenda for the next financial year. Last year there were mentions about how to deal with the oil subsidy, the gold imports and some of that essentially being reflected upon in decision making subsequent to the Budget in fact through the year.

Experts expect Raghuram Rajan’s key contribution to behis wide understanding of the way international financial markets work. Given that specialty and the expertise that he has in this regard you can perhaps look forward to clear cut pointers and a lot of advice as far as financial intermediation and the markets are concerned.

However, overall the tone and tenor for the economic survey is going to be of marked caution on several fronts and perhaps optimism as far as the next year’s outlook is concerned. The key thing will be how much of those ideas get reflected in the Budget on that, the track-record so far has not been very good.