From deficits to dividends

Others use comely young ladies on their New Year calendars. But Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA), and Professor of Economics at Cornell, has always had a thing for economics.

So to celebrate the 50 years of the service he heads as CEA, namely, the Indian Economic Service (IES), he has come up with a novel idea.

Instead of skimpily clad girls, he has put 12 Nobel winning economists for you to gaze at throughout the year to draw a different kind of inspiration. Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Arrow, Robert Solow, Amartya Sen, George Akerlof, Joseph Stiglitz are some of the chosen few.

Separate services

The IES was set up in 1961 after five years of “consideration” — and after the Second Five Year Plan which had necessitated the thought, had come and gone.

Its mandate is to help the Government with professional economic advice.

The Cabinet decision read: “The Cabinet decided that two separate Services should be formed; one a Statistical Service and other an Economic Service…

“It was also decided that the existing staff in the various ministries doing economic and statistical work should be absorbed as far as possible in either of the two services...”

The first member of the Service was S. R. Sen. I. G. Patel, Sharad Marathe, R. M. Honavar, and Manu Shroff were some of the illustrious names who joined it.

Originally, the proposal was to have a combined economic and statistics service. But Prof. P. C. Mahalanobis, Honorary Statistical Adviser to the Cabinet, said no. The Cabinet was told: “In Prof. Mahalanobis's view it would be undesirable and incongruous to have a combined Statistical and Economic Advisory Service. He has advised that a service for trained statisticians should be created and that it should be kept distinct from any cadre of Economists.”

Recently, the Central Administrative Tribunal set aside the appointment of Dr T. C. A. Anant as Chief Statistician of India on the grounds that he was not a statistician. The Government has appealed against the ruling.

Not for the high born

Until the early 1980s, CEAs used to be mostly from the IES. However, from the time of Bimal Jalan onwards CEAs have not been from it. Nor have they deigned to join it even though some of them served the government for over 25 years. Not for them the example set by the likes of S. R. Sen and I. G. Patel.

Until 1985, the Service was controlled by the Home Ministry because the Cabinet had ruled, “It was further decided that control of the two Services should vest in the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Since 1985, the Service has been under the Finance Ministry. The CEA is its cadre controller. Despite having a father figure in North Block, a retired IES officer rues, “We are an orphaned service.”

The Finance Ministry organised a number of events in 2011 to celebrate the golden jubilee. It also launched an encyclopaedia portal of desi economic jargon in policy circles called Arthapedia.in. The next event is a seminar of economists on January 24 where a commemorative volume may be released.

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