New Delhi:The Economic Survey 2025-26, tabled in Parliament recently, has sparked sharp criticism from opposition leaders, journalists, and professionals. Critics accuse it of painting an overly rosy picture of India’s economy — highlighting 7.4% GDP growth, low inflation, and fiscal gains — while brushing aside real-world pain points like transparency erosion, rural job insecurity, environmental neglect, and squeezed household incomes.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge zeroed in on the survey’s proposal to “re-examine” the Right to Information (RTI) Act, calling it part of a long pattern of weakening democratic safeguards. He linked it to alleged attacks on transparency and rural welfare.
Kharge said: “The Economic Survey has called for ‘re-examination’ of the Right to Information Act. It also suggests a possible ‘Ministerial veto’ to withhold information and wants to explore the possibility of shielding public service records, transfers and staff reports of bureaucrats from public scrutiny. Modi Govt has systematically weakened the RTI Act — Over 26,000 pending cases as of 2025. In 2019, the Modi Govt hacked away at the RTI Act, seizing control over Information Commissioners’ tenure and pay, converting independent watchdogs into submissive functionaries. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 gutted the RTI’s public interest clause, weaponising privacy to shield corruption and stonewall scrutiny. Until last month (December 2025), the Central Information Commission had been functioning without a Chief Information Commissioner — the seventh time in 11 years this key post was deliberately kept vacant. Since 2014, over 100 RTI activists have been murdered, unleashing a climate of terror that punishes truth-seekers and extinguishes dissent. The Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014 passed by the Congress-UPA has not been implemented by the BJP, till date. After killing MGNREGA, is it RTI’s turn to get murdered?”
Congress General Secretary, Randeep Surjewala has branded the document a showcase of “government hypocrisy” on fiscal matters. He argued the touted growth relies heavily on public spending rather than broad-based private consumption or investment. Surjewala said: “This Economic Survey isn’t about fiscal health. It’s about who is allowed to spend and on whom.”
He slammed double standards: state-level cash transfers and welfare get labeled “fiscal populism” that raises borrowing costs, while central corporate tax cuts and massive NPA write-offs are hailed as prudent reforms.
Senior Journalist Saurav Das has also targeted the survey’s push to exempt file notings and internal deliberations from RTI scrutiny, calling it a direct blow to anti-corruption efforts. Das said: “Corruption is at the peak and the Economic Survey wants file notings and internal deliberations of departments to be kept secret under RTI Act! Why is it that the government wants to take inspiration from the worst of other countries (US Freedom of Information Act for instance) and ignore the best practices from those same countries (for instance, the great level of public scrutiny of officials in the same US)? Yet another assault on people’s right to know in the making! Must be resisted tooth and nail!”
Capital Markets professional Aditya Garg delivered a stark reality check on middle-class finances, arguing official reports hide the true burden of taxes and poor public services. Garg said: “Stop waiting for Budget 2026. The system is already broken. You don’t earn a ₹1,00,000 Salary. You earn ₹48,000. The rest is a mandatory ‘System Subscription’ to a country where you still pay for private healthcare. The math FM won’t show in Budget or Economic survey.”
Karnataka’s Minister Rural Development, Panchayat Raj, Electronics & IT/BT Priyank Kharge, dismissed the survey as misleading and self-congratulatory, accusing it of sidestepping crises like Delhi’s air pollution and downplaying climate action. He also condemned the apparent support for replacing MGNREGA with the Viksit Bharat-Gramg (VBGRAM) Bill, calling it “draconian.”
Kharge said: “Amid the over-reported GDP growth figures and the attempt to paint a hunky-dory picture of the economy, the Economic Survey 2025-26 does more to mislead than inform. … The Economic Survey feels more like a self-praising, face-saving document that lauds the government’s own decisions and quietly writes off uncomfortable and unresolved problems under the carpet.”
The survey defends its RTI suggestions as a way to protect genuine governance without diluting transparency’s core, and frames the VB-G RAM G overhaul as modernizing rural employment for better accountability and infrastructure focus. Yet opposition voices insist these changes mask deeper vulnerabilities in jobs, environment, and accountability.
As the Union Budget looms, this polarized debate underscores the clash between headline optimism and ground-level discontent.