Economic Survey emerges a bestseller

Even as the investor mood is down and India’s growth has slowed down, a government document that showcases the health of the economy is giving competition to the works of Dan Brown, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jeffrey Archer, Lance Armstrong, Walter Isaacson and many other star writers. Last week, leading online retailer, Flipkart, classified 'Economic Survey 2011-12’ as a bestseller. At present, it’s showing as a 'top new release’ on the site. The 'Survey’, as is popularly referred to, is part of the mainstream now. And, it is printing and selling much more than before.

While the finance ministry printed 6,000 copies of the Survey this year in its own press, it gave the franchise to Oxford University Press (OUP) for printing the rest as per demand. Estimates suggest that Oxford has already printed around 18,000 copies of the Economic Survey this year. There could be reprints in the coming months too. In the previous year,  OUP had printed approximately 13,000 copies of the Survey, it is learnt. Official figures from OUP are not available.

The 'Economic Survey’, that is released every year by the Ministry of Finance ahead of the Union Budget, is usually popular with students especially those taking the civil services exam. But with the growing interest in the Indian economy, the profile of those buying the 'Survey’, anchored by the chief economic advisor to the finance ministry (currently Kaushik Basu who’s on leave from  Cornell University where he’s a professor of Economics), has changed over time, pointed out retailers. Multinational companies, embassies, entrepreneurs, researchers and policy makers, along with students, figure prominently in the list of buyers.        
Ankit Nagori, Vice-President, Categories, Flipkart, told Business Standard, the Economic Survey has been doing extremely well on the site over time. “In fact, we have sold over 10 per cent of the total books that Oxford University Press has printed – making it one of our recent bestsellers,” he added. Originally priced at Rs 350, the online retailers are offering a discount of anything between 20 and 25 per cent on it.
According to Narasimha Jayakumar, COO (E-commerce), HomeShop18.com, Economic Survey 2011-12 was among the bestsellers at the time of launch. He attributed the rise in demand for titles like the Economic Survey to the economic awareness of readers. “Indians now want to stay abreast on policy decisions, to know how it will impact the overall investment culture in the country,” he added. Jayakumar said most of the orders were being placed by foreign embassies as well as from multinational companies operating in India.
Landmark, another book chain operating both offline and online, is not too much into government books, but has already sold out more than 300 copies of the Survey it had stocked at the time of launch, a company representative said.
Jain Book Agency (JBA), a specialist in government books and publications based in New Delhi, is also out of stock when it comes to the Economic Survey. A store representative said it sold in good number just after the launch in March and April. JBA is now waiting for re-prints.       
The Economic Survey is described as a flagship annual document of the ministry of finance, and it reviews the developments in the Indian economy over the past 12 months across sectors. It also offers the prospects of the economy in the short to medium term. As a reviewer said, “anyone who is keen on facts and is numbers driven will get good insights from this book on country's progress...”