The Economic Survey has served not merely as a statistical compendium but as a statement of economic thinking. It is expected to interpret the moment, signal priorities, and occasionally provoke debate. In recent years, however, the balance appears to be shifting. The Survey, like much of modern governance, risks becoming a dense atlas of dashboards, metrics, and tables that measure activity with impressive precision but sometimes illuminate judgment with less clarity.
India has built one of the world’s most sophisticated digital public infrastructures, with real time visibility across taxation, welfare delivery, financial flows and public expenditure. The state today sees more than it ever did. As fiscal pressures tighten and capital allocation choices become harder, this expanded visibility is a powerful administrative asset. But measurement is not the same as meaning. And visibility is not the same as accountability.
The deeper policy question is therefore timely. Does the rise of real time dashboards strengthen governance by sharpening feedback loops, or does it create an illusion of control that quietly sidelines human judgment and institutional responsibility?
The answer, inconveniently, is both.
READ I Gender statistics, unpaid work, and the limits of labour data
Economic Survey and dashboard governance
Dashboards have transformed the state’s operating capacity. Leakages in welfare transfers have reduced because systems now flag anomalies early. Infrastructure projects can be tracked down to the last milestone. Financial inclusion programmes can be monitored at population scale.
In a country of India’s administrative complexity, these are non-trivial gains. Any serious reform agenda must build on these capabilities rather than romanticise the pre digital era. Yet there is a growing second order risk that deserves far more attention in policy circles.
READ I India unemployment data hides a job quality problem
Dashboard metrics vs policy judgment
Dashboards are exceptionally effective instruments of execution discipline. They are far weaker instruments of strategic judgment. When systems begin to privilege what is easily measurable, institutions can gradually start managing (to) the metric rather than to the mission. Economists have long warned of this dynamic. When a measure becomes the target, it begins to lose informational value.
This drift is already visible in subtle ways. Targets become proxies for outcomes. Compliance becomes a substitute for performance. And the comforting glow of real time dashboards can mask slower moving structural weaknesses that do not lend themselves to neat quantification.
Consider a simple illustration. Bank account penetration in India has expanded dramatically and deservedly so. Yet account usage, grievance resolution quality, and customer trust have moved at a more uneven pace. The dashboard shows near universal access. The lived experience is more complex. Both facts are true, but only one fits neatly into a metric.
This is where judgment matters.
The Economic Survey at its best has historically played a role precisely here. It stepped back from the noise of administrative metrics to interpret broader economic currents. It identified emerging risks before they were visible in headline numbers. It offered a considered view of trade-offs facing policymakers. When the document becomes overly preoccupied with enumerating progress, it risks underplaying this interpretive function.
There is also a quieter institutional question that deserves reflection. Has the Survey, in the annual policy calendar, begun to drift towards ritual rather than influence? Formally, it precedes the Union Budget and is expected to inform the government’s economic thinking. But outside a narrow policy circle, it is not always evident how deeply its analytical insights shape budget design or medium term strategy. If the Survey is to retain its stature, it must be seen not merely as an obligatory pre budget publication but as a living input into fiscal choices and structural reform priorities.
A related issue concerns intellectual independence. The Economic Survey has traditionally carried the imprint of the Chief Economic Advisor’s professional judgment, even when aligned with the government’s broad direction. That balance is delicate and important. The Survey commands credibility when it is perceived as analytically candid, not merely politically harmonious. The real test of the document is not whether it supports the government’s narrative, but whether it sharpens policy thinking by confronting uncomfortable trade-offs when necessary. Maintaining that distinction, quietly but firmly, is essential to the Survey’s long-term relevance.
READ I New MPI data: Poverty and climate are now the same crisis
Accountability in digitised governance systems
There is also an accountability dimension that deserves sharper scrutiny. Dashboards tend to distribute responsibility across systems rather than concentrate it in decision makers. When outcomes disappoint, the failure is often attributed to data gaps, implementation frictions, or legacy constraints. Rarely is it framed as a failure of policy judgment. Over time, this can create a subtle but important shift in governance culture.
Institutions that are over instrumented can paradoxically become under accountable.
The political economy of dashboards further complicates matters. Real time metrics naturally reward visible, short cycle gains. Structural reforms, by contrast, are slow, contested, and often politically expensive. The risk is not that policymakers do not understand this distinction. The risk is that institutional attention gradually gravitates toward what can be measured quickly rather than what must be fixed patiently.
This is not unique to government. Corporate India is confronting a similar tension. Boardrooms today are flooded with analytics, customer heat maps, real time performance trackers and predictive models. These tools have improved operational discipline. But they have also, in some cases, narrowed strategic imagination. Leaders can become excessively reactive to dashboards while under investing in longer horizon judgment calls that rarely show up in quarterly metrics.
The recent history of global business offers enough cautionary reminders. Companies that optimised relentlessly for measurable efficiency often missed structural shifts in technology, consumer behaviour or geopolitical risk. Vision atrophies quietly when management bandwidth is consumed entirely by real time optimisation.
Public policy risks a similar trap, one that may become sharper as governance systems increasingly incorporate AI driven monitoring and automated decision support. The question is not whether these tools improve state capacity. They do. The question is whether institutional judgment evolves fast enough to remain in command of the machine.
India’s next phase of economic transformation will not be constrained primarily by lack of data. It will be constrained by the quality of institutional judgment in interpreting that data and acting on it. The Chief Economic Advisor’s voice in the Economic Survey therefore matters precisely because it is expected to rise above the administrative dashboard and offer a coherent reading of the economic moment.
What can be done.
First, policy documents like the Economic Survey must consciously preserve space for analytical judgment. Tables and dashboards should inform the narrative, not dominate it. The Survey’s comparative advantage lies in synthesis and foresight, not merely in compilation.
Second, governments should invest as much in outcome audits as in real time monitoring. Measurement systems must be periodically stress tested against ground reality. Independent feedback loops, citizen experience surveys and field level evaluations are essential correctives to dashboard optimism.
Third, accountability frameworks need to remain person centred even in highly digitised systems. Technology can flag problems early, but ownership of resolution must remain clearly assigned. Otherwise, the diffusion of responsibility that often accompanies platform governance will quietly erode institutional discipline.
Fourth, both government and corporate leaders must consciously protect strategic bandwidth. Not every important risk is visible in real time data. Not every structural shift announces itself through metrics. Leadership judgment requires periodic distance from the dashboard.
The challenge for the next decade is not to choose between data and discretion, but to restore the hierarchy between them.
Numbers must inform power. They should never replace it.