Indian economy: 10 new facts

India can be rated as among the best performing economies in the world

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled the Economic Survey 2017-18 in Parliament on Monday.

The survey points out that India can be rated as among the best performing economies in the world as the average growth during last three years is around 4 percentage points higher than global growth and nearly 3 percentage points higher than that of Emerging Market and Developing Economies.

The Survey has highlighted ten new facts on the economy.

1. There has been a large increase in registered indirect and direct taxpayers

A 50 per cent increase in unique indirect taxpayers under die GST compared with the pre-GST system (Figure 1A).

Similarly, there has been an addition (over and above trendgrowth) of about 1.8 million in individual income tax filers since November 2016.

2. Formal non-agricultural payroll is much greater than believed

More than 30 per cent when formality is defined in terms of social security (EPFO/ESIq provision;

More than 50 per cent when defined in terms of being in the GST net.

3. States' prosperity is correlated with their international and inter-state trade

States that export more internationally, and trade more with other states, tend to be richer. But the correlation is stronger between prosperitc and international trade.

4.India's firm export structure is substantially more egalitarian than in other large countries

Top 1 per cent of Indian funs account for 38 per cent of exports; in all other countries, they account for a substantially greater share (72, 68, 67, and 55 per cent of exports in Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and USA respectively).

And this is true for the top 5 per cent, 10 per cent, and so on.

5. The clothing incentive package boosted exports of readymade garments.

The relief from embedded state taxes (ROSL) announced in 2016 boosted exports of ready-made garments (but not others) by about 16 per cent.

6. There is substantial avoidable litigation in the tax arena which government action could reduce

The tax department's petition rate is high, even though its success rate in litigation is low and declining (well below 30 per cent).

Only 0.2 per cent of cases accounted for 56 per cent of the value at stake.

About 66 per cent of pending cases (each less than Rs. 10 lakhs) accounted for only 1.8 per cent of the value at stake.

7. To re-ignite growth, raising investment is more important than raising saving

Cross-country experience shows that growth slowdowns are preceded by investment slowdowns but not necessarily by savings slowdowns may not.

Change in investment and change in growth.

Change in saving and change in growth.

8. Own direct tax collections by Indian states and local governments are significantly lower than those of their counterparts in other federal countries

This share is low relative to the direct taxation powers they actually have.

9. Sex ratio by birth between India and Indonesia

The data highlighted another seemingly known fact that Indian society exhibits a strong desire for a male child.

It pointed out that most parents continued to have children until they get number of sons.

The survey gave details of various scenarios leading to skewed sex ratios and also gave a comparison on sex ratio by birth between India and Indonesia.

10. Distribution of temperature changes

The survey captures the footprints of climate change on the Indian territory and consequent adverse impact on agricultural yields.

Extreme temperature increases and deficiency in rainfall have been captured on the Indian map and the graphical changes in agricultural yields are brought out from such data.

The impact was found to be twice as large in un-irrigated areas as in irrigated ones.

Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

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