In order to address the challenges posed by the deadly Coronavirus, the survey has focused on 10 major issues that must be viewed as a torchbearer for the road ahead. Initially, it talks about the efforts of saving lives and livelihoods when both demand and supply encountered major shocks as the lock-down brought everything to halt.
Reforms
The structural reforms in agriculture markets, labour laws and MSMEs played a key role in avoiding disruption of supply chains and handling the situation efficiently.
The survey suggests the idea of growth leading to debt sustainability when there are concerns about rising fiscal deficit. It encourages the govt. to provide impetus to growth by taking more debt because the growth rate is expected to be much higher than the cost of borrowing, implying a win win situation for economy and fiscal position.
Apprehensions are discussed on the issue of sovereign credit rating of India due to the non-transparency and subjectivity in agencies’ methodologies leading to bias against emerging giants like India and China.
On the question of whether India should focus more on inequality or growth, the survey examines various studies and comes to the conclusion that for developing economies like India, redistribution is only feasible if the size of economic pie grows.
Implications
This implies that inequality and growth actually complement each other and hence, India must focus on economic growth to alleviate poverty. The survey appreciates the measures taken in healthcare sector by govt. to fight COVID-19.
Key suggestions for future improvements include continuation of National Health Mission (NHM) with Ayushman Bharat, increase in spending, boost in telemedicine and mitigation of misinformation.
A variety of procedural reforms have been suggested to counter over-regulation in business sector. Some of the important measures include allowing greater discretion, transparent decision-making and reforms in labor codes.
The survey also studies the policy of regulatory forbearance adopted after 2008 financial crisis and concludes that the policy was implemented for too long which led to exploitation by banks in window-dressing of books and misallocation of credit causing the problems of rising NPAs and undercapitalization.
A proposal for withdrawal of forbearance and an exercise of Asset Quality review has been made to structurally transform the banking sector.
The last chapters of survey lay emphasis on increasing R&D to bring innovation in business, especially from private sector; account significant impact of PM Jan Arogya Yojana in enhancing insurance coverage and reducing mortality; and examine progress made by Bare Necessities Index (BNI) in providing access to bare necessities at rural, urban and all India level respective
Written By - Nidhi Verma
Edited By - Nidhi Verma
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