The ground rule for any report is to never cite Wikipedia as a source for any information. But looks like the Finance Ministry ignored the thumb rule and quoted Wikipedia as a source in the Economic Survey of India that was tabled in the Parliament ahead of the Union Budget 2020 on January 31.
The Economic Survey is a government document prepared by a team of economists in the Finance Ministry and maps the trends in the economy.
On two instances in Volume 1 of the report, Wikipedia is cited as a source of information.
The first is on page 150 where a graph from the online encyclopedia is used to show ‘number of banks in the global top 100’, while on page 151 a comparative graph of India and China’s GDP is sourced from Wikipedia.
The free online information encyclopedia is owned and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a public platform where any person from the world can upload and/or update the information.
School and college students are often advised not to use Wikipedia as a primary source of information but it appears our senior economists in the finance ministry are unaware of the thumb rule.
Both the images have been widely shared on social media and have put a question mark on the Economic survey and the procedure behind it.
Economic Survey has found a new source to base estimates (Page 150, 151): Wikipedia #EconomicSurvey2020 #EconomicSurvey @SubramanianKri @andymukherjee70 @someshjha7 @sardesairajdeep @ravishndtv @Nidhi pic.twitter.com/Mjhs2Ch0cC
â Anurag Sharma (@anuragshaarma) January 31, 2020
India’s latest Economic Survey 2019-20 refers to Wikipedia as a data source in a couple of places in the report. No question we’re reaching new heights of scholarship. This has got to be a first. pic.twitter.com/S0YGTPxLzS
â Rupa Subramanya (@rupasubramanya) January 31, 2020
Wikipedia being the source for our economic survey pic.twitter.com/GPv1xJIZB1
â S. A AJIMS (@saajims) February 1, 2020
Also Read: Union Budget 2020: New Simplified Income Tax Regime Proposed, Dividend Distribution Tax Removed
