Minister for Finance, Dr Haseeb Drabu today announced that the Economic Survey would be released twice a year from now onwards. He asked the concerned officials to make the language of the document simple so that general public can understand it.The Minister said this while reviewing preparation of the Economic Survey for the year 2016-17 by the Economics and Statistics Department.The Minister said from now onwards the Economic Survey shall be a biannual feature and will be presented in the month of January and July every year. He said the survey to be presented in January shall be an economic outlook while as mid-year review will be brought out in July. Dr Drabu stressed on the officers to make the language of the report simple and readable so that common masses can understand and comprehend it easily. He passed series of instructions regarding preparation of the Economic Survey.The Finance Minister said that the economic survey should not be a boring and monotonous document but simplified for the benefit of general public and it should answer questions which are on everybody’s mind.
The meeting was further told that the economic survey should be citizen-centric and should focus on segments like ‘Impact of Uncertainty’ on critical functions including Government Expenditure, Labour and Man-days generated and on delivery of government services to the public.While elaborating upon the impact of uncertainty on planning processes, Dr Drabu said the report should feature the uncertainty impact numbers while planning for future and should provide for contingent liabilities arising because of the uncertainties.The Minister further instructed the officers to present the data from consumer point of view rather than from production point of view which will help in allocation of funds to various public service initiatives in a better way and on normative basis.Since 2004, the Economic Survey is generally tabled in the state Legislature a day before the Annual Budget is presented. Financial Commissioner Planning and Principal Secretary to CM, B B Vyas, Director General Economics and Statistics and other officials of the department attended the meeting.