Economic Survey 2020: Why wealth creation was picked as this year's theme

Economic Survey 2019-20: Elaborating on India's historical dominance on the global economy, the survey stressed on the importance of bringing an openness in the market that leads to wealth creation

Economic Survey 2020 was tabled in the parliament on Friday. This year's survey has a 'Lavender Purple theme' -- a synthesis of old and new with wealth creation as the focus. It emphasised on the importance of 'Ethical Wealth Creation', as the key to making India $5 trillion economy by 2025. The survey tapped into traditional texts like Kautilya's Arthashastra, Thiruvalluvar's Thirukural and the treatise on modern economics, Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

Also read: Economic Survey 2020 draws heavy references from Kautilya's Arthashashtra

Elaborating on India's historical dominance on the global economy, the survey stressed on the importance of bringing an openness in the market that leads to wealth creation. The survey said banking sector expanded at much higher rates after the sector was opened for competition through licences granted to private sector banks. A similar effect in the mutual funds sector was seen, after it was opened up for competition in 2003.

FULL COVERAGE:Union Budget 2020

Also read: Economic Survey 2020 pushes for privatisation of education, flexible labour laws

Economic Survey 2020: How to ensure wealth creation

1. Entrepreneurship: The survey said that grass root entrepreneurs at the district-level were the real wealth creators. According to the survey, creation of new firms has gone up dramatically since 2014. While the number of new firms grew at a cumulative annual growth rate of 3.8 per cent from 2006-2014, the growth rate from 2014 to 2018 has been 12.2 per cent. As a result, from about 70,000 new firms created in 2014, the number has grown by about 80 per cent to about 1,24,000 new firms in 2018.

2. Pro-business policies: Promote 'pro-business' policies that unleash the power of competitive markets to generate wealth, stated the document.

Also read: India's GDP growth not overstated, says Economic Survey 2020

3. Integration of 'Assemble in India for the world' into Make in India:  Integration of 'Assemble in India' into 'Make in India' to focus on labour intensive exports and thereby create jobs at a large scale would help in job creation.

4. Privatisation: Use privatisation to foster efficiency. The Survey pointed out several evidences that India's GDP growth estimates can be trusted.

5. Thalinomics: The survey interlinked economics to the common person using something that an individual encounters every day - a plate of food i.e a Thali. Under this, the survey pointed  out that the higher rate of inflation in vegetarian and non-vegetarian thalis during 2019/20 is temporary and should revert back as it has done in earlier years.

Also read: Economic Survey 2020: The thali, India's own Big Mac Index