Famous film dialogues find mention

Bollywood actor Sunny Deol’s iconic dialogue ‘tarikh-par-tarikh’ (dates after dates) is used in the Economic Survey to highlight the frequent delays in the judicial process. The survey calls for coordinated action between the government and the judiciary to address the delays and boost economic activity. It says the next frontier on the ease of doing business is addressing pendency, delays and backlogs in the appellate and judicial arenas as these are hampering dispute resolution and discouraging investments. A well-known song from Manoj Kumar-starrer ‘Upkaar’, ‘Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle ugle heerey moti’ figured in the climate change and agriculture section. PTI 

Malnutrition poses health risk

Child and maternal malnutrition continues to be the most challenging risk factor for health loss in India, the survey said. It listed air pollution, dietary risks, high blood pressure and diabetes as other key health risk factors facing the country. It, however, noted that there has been significant improvement in the health status of the individual as life expectancy at birth has increased by approximately 10 years from 1990 to 2015. PTI

India improves student-teacher ratio

Student-classroom ratio (SCR) and pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of government-run schools have witnessed ‘significant progress’, the survey said. The ideal size is 30 students per classroom. At all-India level, percentage of schools with SCR greater than 30 students declined from 43 per cent in 2009-10 to 25.7 per cent in 2015-16. India had a PTR of 23:1 at national level for primary schools in 2015-16 against global average of 23.4:1. PTI

8 states, 2 UTs open-defecation free

The number of persons defecating in open in rural areas has declined to 25 crore in January 2018 from 55 crore in October 2014, with eight states and two union territories declared Open Defecation Free (ODF), the Survey said. Stating that the quality of hygiene and sanitation has significant impact on improving health outcomes, it said so far, 296 districts and 3,07,349 villages across India have been declared as ODF. PTI

Telecom sector under major stress

High debt pile, tariff war and irrational spectrum costs found its mention in the Economic Survey which, it said, was resulting in the telecom sector facing major stress and it called for policy measures to minimise over-bidding of assets during auctions. The survey document said a new entrant, referring to Reliance Jio, disrupted the market with low-cost data services and the revenue of incumbent players has fallen. The crisis also severely impacted investors, lenders, partners and vendors of these telecom companies. TNS

Civil aviation progressing well

India is the 3rd largest and the fastest growing domestic aviation market in the world in terms of number of domestic tickets sold. In 2016-17, annual growth in domestic passenger departures was 23.5 per cent compared to 3.3 per cent in the US and 10.7 per cent in China. The survey said domestic passenger traffic registered a compound annual growth rate of 9.89 per cent during 2007-08. TNS