New Delhi, January 31: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday tabled the Economic Survey 2019-20 in Parliament. The Economic Survey quoted Wikipedia as a source of data on two occasions, taking many by surprise as the free encyclopedia, created and edited by volunteers, is vulnerable to data manipulation. Wikipedia is quoted in chapter 7 of the Economic Survey - Golden Jubilee of Bank Nationalisation: Taking Stock. Economic Survey Has Multi-Faceted Strategy to Achieve $5 Trillion Economy, Says PM Narendra Modi.

Economic Survey's page 150 and 151 have one graph each. The data mentioned in the graphs are taken from Wikipedia, according to the pre-Budget survey. One graph (Figure 1) is about the number of banks in the Global Top 100, while the other (Figure 2) highlights India's GDP and the number of banks in the Global Top 100. "Figure 1 shows that India’s banks are disproportionately small compared to the size of its economy," states the Economic Survey.

"Figure 2 clearly highlights this disproportionate dwarfism of the Indian banks when compared to the size of the Indian economy," it said. Many were surprised by the government's move to quote Wikipedia in such an important financial document. "First time ever: Economic Survey mentions Wikipedia as source of data (Pg 150-151). Wow! Just wow!" a journalist tweeted.

Here are some reactions to mention of Wikipedia as a source in Economic Survey:

The Economic Survey has projected India's GDP growth at 6-6.5 percent in the next fiscal year. This marks a sharp decline from the estimate of 7 percent growth in last year's Economic Survey. The pre-Budget survey pegged the FY20 growth rate to 5 percent.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 31, 2020 07:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).