{"id":224365,"date":"2023-01-31T20:41:17","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T15:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=224365"},"modified":"2023-02-20T14:50:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T09:20:27","slug":"21st-century-india-needs-a-real-time-fiscal-data-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/21st-century-india-needs-a-real-time-fiscal-data-portal\/","title":{"rendered":"21st century India needs a real-time fiscal data portal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article \u201c21st century India needs a real-time fiscal data portal\u201d <\/strong>published in the Livemint <\/b>on\u00a031st January 2023<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS 3 \u2013 Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>: About real-time fiscal data portal.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: Former chief economic adviser in his book mentions accounting tricks that made it difficult to gauge the precise extent of the fiscal deficit. Hence, the government should make efforts for a more transparent and accessible budget for India\u2019s citizens and investors.<\/p>\n

Why does India need a real-time fiscal data portal?<\/h2>\n

At the moment, fiscal data in India is fragmented, incomplete, and often comes with lags. This makes it difficult to analyse government finances<\/strong> across the country comprehensively.<\/p>\n

If local body grants provided by the Union government to states are shown as entries in the budgets of both the Union and states, it will overstate government spending<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Most states do not maintain reliable and up-to-date data<\/strong> on off-balance sheet spending and contingent liabilities (including liabilities on account of state level public enterprises).<\/p>\n

Different states tend to have different budgetary classifications<\/strong>, making inter-state comparisons difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Must read: Economic Survey 2022-23 PDF<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What are the committee recommendations that demand a real-time fiscal data portal?<\/h2>\n

-A 2018 committee on fiscal statistics<\/strong> appointed by the National Statistical Commission (NSC)<\/strong> argued for a complete overhaul of India\u2019s fiscal database.<\/p>\n

The committee found that a)<\/strong> local government accounts were simply unavailable for most states, b)<\/strong> India’s fiscal data lacks compilation, classification into suitable categories and eventual publication on a website or in printed form.<\/p>\n

The report mentions that as many parts of the financial system have been digitized, it is possible to build a comprehensive real-time fiscal data warehouse<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

-Over the years, a number of Finance Commission reports<\/strong> have advocated the setting up of an apex fiscal council to aggregate fiscal data<\/strong>. Such a council can help clean up public finance statistics and provide a more accurate view of the flow of public funds across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: India needs to use its fiscal armoury to fight inequality<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What are the advantages of a real-time fiscal data portal?<\/h2>\n

The portal will a)<\/strong> inform about the funds flowing across the three tiers of government\u2014Centre, state and local governments, b)<\/strong> be an invaluable resource to understand the Indian economy, c)<\/strong> allow India\u2019s citizens to monitor fund flows minutely, d)<\/strong> improve the quality of reporting, thereby driving up the efficiency of public spending, e)<\/strong> allow government vendors and related businesses to plan their purchases and inventories better, f)<\/strong> help government to estimate borrowing needs of different levels of government accurately.<\/p>\n

Hence, the government should create a federal fiscal organization<\/strong> to bring more consistent reporting standards and a real-time fiscal data portal<\/strong> that can bring about economy-wide efficiency gains, and pre-empt fiscal crises in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article \u201c21st century India needs a real-time fiscal data portal\u201d published in the Livemint on\u00a031st January 2023. Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment. Relevance: About real-time fiscal data portal. News: Former chief economic adviser in his… Continue reading 21st century India needs a real-time fiscal data portal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10501],"class_list":["post-224365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-live-mint","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}