Tamil Nadu to set up an advisory panel with economic experts

Tamil Nadu is setting up an Economic Advisory Council to the Chief Minister to reverse the slowdown of the economy in the states. The panel will include Nobel laureates, former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, and former CEA Arvind Subramanian.

The state Governor Banwarilal Purohit said at the Legislative Assembly that the panel will design a plan to put the state on the track to growth. He added that the government will be releasing a white paper on state finances in July.

Tamil Nadu's debt estimate was over Rs 5 lakh crore in 2021-22. The state is also expecting a widening revenue deficit as tax revenue is likely to take an 18% dip due to the pandemic. The DMK government recently announced a massive scheme of Rs 4,000 a family as part of Covid relief.

The governor said that the goal is to chart out a rapid and inclusive economic growth path for Tamil Nadu as the state has seen a slowdown in the economic growth rate. "This government will make all efforts to reverse this trend. And initiate a period of rapid economic growth by taking full advantage of the available limited window of the demographic dividend," he added.

Nobel Laureate Prof. Esther Duflo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Prof. Raghuram Rajan (former Governor of RBI), Dr. Arvind Subramanian (former Chief Economic Advisor), Prof. Jean Dreze (Development Economist), and Dr. S. Narayan (former Union Finance Secretary) are part of the advisory panel.