“Good economics becoming good politics”

Patna

Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian on Friday said one of the welcome changes the country had seen in recent years was that good economics practised by different state governments was paying dividend to them in elections.

“Good economics are becoming good politics which is a welcome change the country has witnessed in recent past,” Subramanian told the Economic Survey Outreach Session here.

Good governance was being rewarded by people by re-electing chief ministers, he said.

“It has been noticed that all the chief ministers elected for more than three times have the credit of achieving agriculture growth of more than 7 per cent annually,” he said.

This was encouraging that leaders were going for economic reforms to spur growth, he said.

Hailing economic growth in Bihar in the past 7-8 years, he said “Bihar is amongst the few states in India that can leap-frog in terms of development.”

Describing recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission for 10 per cent increase in tax devoluation to the states as “big idea” of Narendra Modi government, Subramanian said Bihar was bound to benefit from the recommendations about the devolution of fund from the divisible pool of taxes.

He urged Bihar Finance Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav, who was present on the occasion, to look into the prospect of pruning allocation by taking a leaf from the practices the Centre had recently adopted.

The union government was disseminating information on the Economic Survey to a larger audience possible and spread across the country with the purpose of making more and more people aware of the state of India?s economy.

Before Bihar, the central government had conducted ‘Outreach Sessions’ in a few other states, said an union finance ministry official Rabi Ranjan.

Opening the session, Shaibal Gupta, Member-secretary, ADRI (Asian Development Research Institute), said “this initiative of Subramanian will help us, amongst other things, in fine-tuning the preparation of annual Bihar Economic Survey that the Centre for Economic Policy and Public Finance (CEPPF) has been preparing for the last nine years.”

PTI