While fingers are crossed whether the NDA regime will keep up its reformist zeal in the forthcoming budget — with general elections looming in 2019 — Economic Survey 2017-18 has painted a largely glowing picture of the country’s economy. It has projected that the series of major reforms undertaken last year will push up real GDP growth to 6.75 percent in current fiscal. If the momentum is kept up, growth rate will rise to 7-7.5 percent in 2018-19, which will reinstate India as the world’s “fastest growing major economy”. The economy accelerated in the second half of 2017-18 due to GST, bank recapitalisation, liberalisation of foreign direct investment and higher exports, the survey states. In fact, India, despite its slowdown last year, can be rated as among the best performing economies because its average growth in past 3 years has been 4 percentage points higher than the global figure. Inflation has been largely under control, while the government’s massive recapitalisation exercise has infused some market confidence about tackling the problem of huge non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks. Along with this, there has been a welcome move to reduce corporate debt through tighter insolvency and bankruptcy laws. The survey is bullish on GST (Goods and Services Tax), calling it a boon for tax collection because there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of registered indirect taxpayers in the first year of its rollout. There has also been an increase in the number of direct taxpayers, which can be attributed to the Prime Minister’s demonetisation move in making transactions digital and thereby bringing in more taxpayers. The survey plumps for an export oriented economy, furnishing data to argue that states which export more to other states or countries get richer. The survey claims that in the export sector, inequality is far less than otherwise — the top 1 percent of Indian firms account for 38 percent of exports, which is relatively more skewed in many other countries. This is all very well, but the fact remains that India has been facing a continuing slack in export demand in last 3-4 years, which in turn has hurt investment. Where the government can make a real difference is in trying to improve domestic demand. A large part of this can come about by raising industrial capacity, which is still stagting at around 70 percent on average.