‘Ignoring note ban is like Hamlet without Prince of Denmark’

NEW DELHI: The Economic Survey tries to do full justice to complex issues like demonetisation lest the document run the risk of being “Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark”, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said.

The survey admits that demonetisaton would shave off the economic growth for the current fiscal by 0.25 - 0.50 per cent, though it would have long term benefits.

This year’s survey comes in the wake of a set of tumultuous international developments - Brexit, political changes in advanced economies and two radical domestic policy actions - the GST and demonetisation, Subramanian said in the preface to the document.

“Clearly, the Survey needs to do full justice to all these short term developments, or else it risks being Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark,” Subramanian said, referring to the famous play by Shakespeare.

“To deify or demonise demonetisation that is the difficult question the world is asking, to which the Survey tries to respond. The Survey affords an opportunity to work through the complexities of the analytics, empirics, and potential impacts of demonetisation,” Subramanian said.

The Survey, in a full chapter on ‘Demonetisation: To Deify or Demonize’, tries to give an impartial view on the impact of note ban.

Subramanian also said that last year, “to its dismay”, the Economic Division of the Ministry of Finance, which prepares the Economic Survey, discovered that “there is indeed a higher form of flattery than imitation: brazen pirating, and that too on the most globally public of platforms, Amazon”.

“The anguish suffered by this violation of our intellectual property rights was more than offset by the gratitude we felt in achieving wide circulation for the Survey.

“We strive to do better this year, risking that the Survey might be consigned to the ranks of popular fiction,” he said.

He further said this year, there was “no fear” of the survey being judged by its cover, “which breaks ground with its creative design”.

Adding colour to an otherwise dull and dry Economic Survey, its lead author Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian on Tuesday said the endeavour was to make it look like an Amitabh Bachchan blockbuster with “some drama, some tragedy and some comedy”.

“Amitabh Bachchan more colourfully says issme drama hona chahiye, tragedy hona chahiye, comedy hona chahiye, saab kuch hona chahiye and that’s what the Survey I think tried to do,” he said in a lighter vein while talking about the voluminous 335page document on state of the Indian economy.

The Oxford-educated economist pointed to a lot of discussion on the role and contents of the Economic Survey in recent times.