Universal Basic Income in India Economic Survey
In 2016, the idea of a Universal Basic Income in India made huge news by taking up over forty pages in the 2016-2017 India Economic Survey as a serious and feasible solution to India's poverty and a hope for the economy as a whole. In India, this was an idea that has been discussed for decades in both the public and private spheres. In the forward, the Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian writes, “providing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) that has emerged as a raging new idea both in advanced economies and in India” (pg. viii).[1] In the chapter itself, he notes: “Universal Basic Income is a radical and compelling paradigm shift in thinking about both social justice and a productive economy. It could be to the twenty first century what civil and political rights were to the twentieth.” pg. 173[1]