The Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy is a comprehensive database of macroeconomic and financial information, which has been made available in the public domain since 1998. It is also simultaneously released in electronic form on the “Database on Indian Economy (DBIE): the Reserve Bank’s Data Warehouse (https://dbie.rbi.org.in)”, where it is updated on a regular basis.

2. The publication for the year 2016-17 is the nineteenth in the series. It contains 248 statistical tables, covering time series on a wide range of economic and financial indicators pertaining to national income aggregates, output, prices, money, banking, financial markets, public finances, foreign trade, balance of payments and select socio-economic indicators, at varying frequencies.

3. The publication is brought out under the guidance of Dr. Anil Kumar Sharma, Adviser, by a team in the Data Management and Dissemination Division (DMDD), Department of Statistics and Information Management (DSIM) comprising Smt. Sushila Augustine, Director; Shri Amar Nath Yadav, Smt. Vijaya Gangadaran and Shri Hari Om Tiwari, Assistant Advisers; Shri Pankaj Kumar, Research Officer and Shri Balaji Bhanvase, Assistant.

4. The support and active co-operation provided by the Department of Economic and Policy Research, Department of External Investment and Operations, Financial Markets Operations Department, Internal Debt Management Department, Monetary Policy Department, Financial Markets Regulation Department, Department of Co-operative Banking Regulation, Department of Currency Management, Department of Banking Regulation, Department of Payment and Settlement Systems and Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation deserve appreciation.

5. We welcome comments and suggestions on the Handbook which may please be forwarded to the following address: The Director, Data Management and Dissemination Division, Department of Statistics and Information Management, Reserve Bank of India, C-9, 3rd Floor, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra (East), Mumbai 400051. Feedback may also be forwarded to us by e-mail or through a feedback button available on DBIE site.

(Michael Debabrata Patra)
Executive Director
September 15, 2017