Bigger public-private partnership (PPPs) in social sector programmes and a thorough overhaul of the rural employment scheme to link it with creations of assets and infrastructure relating to agriculture and tourism are on the government agenda, the Economic Survey said. The biggest challenge confronting India is “unleasing the potential of its demographic dividend’, it said. This advantage is starting to slip away. In some states, the average age of the population has already crossed 30. Kerala, for instance, has an average age of 33 years, while the corresponding number for Himachal Pradesh stands at 30.4, the survey said.

i am back from a long holiday. work resumes. first off, this quick and dirty snapshot from the economic survey on the social sector. in the story, see what nikhil dey says about the survey’s suggestion that zero-based budgeting be followed for all social sector programmes.