Two days prior to the presentation of the Economic Survey on January 31, the Union government has appointed Dr V Anantha Nageswaran as the Chief Economic Advisor. The Union Budget for the session 2022-23 will be presented on February 1, 2022.
The government has issued a statement mentioning that Dr V Anantha Nageswaran has assumed charge as the government’s CEA (Chief Economic Advisor) just two days before the presentation of the Economic Survey and the Budget. Dr V Anantha Nageswaran is an Economist, teacher, author, and consultant. He has taught at several business schools and management institutes across the country, and in Singapore as well, as per the statement by the Union Finance Ministry.
The Chief Economic Advisor plays an important role in bringing out the Economic Survey which is responsible for the presenting of the report card of the Central Government during the year and it also provides possible reforms. Usually, two volumes of the surveys are presented but this year, it is expected that a trimmed down version with only one volume will be presented.
The CEA before Dr V Anantha Nageswaran was KV Subramanian and his three-year term ended in December last year. Various names were shortlisted for the post such as Pami Dua, the Professor at Delhi School of Economics; Poonam Gupta who is the Director-General of the NCAER (National Council of Applied Economic Research; and Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor.
Dr V Anantha Nageswaran was the dean of the IFMR Graduate School of Business and he was also a Visiting Professor of Economics at Krea University. Dr Nageswaran has been a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM from 2019 to 2021.
Nageswaran holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM (Indian Institute of Management), Ahmedabad and a doctorate degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He is also known as the co-founder of the Takshashila Institution, which is a centre for research and education in the field of public policy.
In his columns, he has recently been stressing the need for a post-COVID economic re-evaluation and has been writing about the impact of the global pandemic on various sectors of the economy. For a recent column in Mint, he had put forward an argument for the reopening of educational institutions across the nation for a healthier India.
Dr V Anantha Nageswaran has authored many books and has also co-authored Can India grow? He also stated in regards to the farm laws before they were repealed, that policymakers should have consultations on a wider scale. Nageswaran’s appointment as the Chief Economic Advisor has been welcomed by people from the political aisle.
