As a member of the Indian Administrative Service for more than thirty-six years, Subhash Chandra Garg was deeply involved in public administration, the execution of development programmes, managing state-level institutions, making Budgets both at state- and Central-government levels, and policymaking. He crafted many Budgets as the secretary, Budget; as finance secretary of the government of Rajasthan; as the secretary, economic affairs; and as the finance secretary to the Government of India. He served as the secretary, economic affairs, for a little over two years, from 2017 to 2019. After taking voluntary retirement from the IAS in October 2019, he now works as a policy observer, strategist, commentator and writer on important economic and financial policy issues with a focus on economic and fiscal affairs, and policy of India. Garg’s first book, The $10 Trillion Dream: The State of the Indian Economy and the Policy Reforms Agenda, was published in February 2022. His second book, Subhash Chandra Garg’s Explanation and Commentary on Budget 2022–23, includes the results and outcome of Budget 2021–22 and the implementation of Budget 2022–23, and develops a national standard for analysing and commenting on Central government budgets. He writes opinion editorials and columns for print and online news magazines, and speaks to think-tanks, educational institutions and investors regularly. He appears on television channels for discussions on economy, Budget and other public policy matters as well.
<p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">Economic policy has a direct impact on how people live, eat, work and spend. It governs every aspect of life, and finance secretaries are central to how economic policy is made and implemented. In this book, Subhash Chandra Garg, former economic affairs secretary and finance secretary, tells the inside story of how economic policy is made, and unmade, at the highest levels in the Government of India.</p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px;">We Also Make Policy</em> is a fly-on-the-wall account of proceedings within the finance ministry. The book talks candidly about controversial decisions from the first tenure of the NDA government, such as the politics of ‘minimum support price’ to farmers, electoral bonds, recapitalizing of banks, monetizing national assets and the controversial resignation of RBI Governor Urjit Patel, among others. As the author of three Union Budgets, Garg also talks about what it takes to put the Budget together: the pressures, the processes, the calculations and, above all, the politics.</p>
