Indian Economy is one of the core subjects for UPSC Prelims. In the last 5 years, Indian Economy has been getting weightage of around 15-20% in the UPSC Prelims exam.
Most of the students find Indian Economy to be tough and "Technical" and may give less emphasis on Indian Economy as compared to other subjects such as Polity and History. However, one must realize that Indian Economy is one of the easy subjects, provided students have sound conceptual understanding of the subject. In this regard, let us understand as to how students must approach Indian Economy to score high marks in Prelims exam.
What to study?
Even though UPSC Prelims is considered to be unpredictable, a thorough and detailed analysis of the last 10 years Questions can provide the students with an idea of important chapters and Important Topics.
 Figure 1 |  Figure 2 |
For example, as shown in Figure 1, the theme of "Banking and Finance" enjoys the highest weightage among all the chapters in Indian Economy. Similarly, as shown in the Figure 2, within the chapter of "Monetary Policy", questions are asked from different themes such as basics of monetary policy tools, Current developments. Hence, students are advised to go through Previous year Questions (PYQs) to find out nature of questions asked from all the chapters.
What is the right strategy?
After a thorough analysis of the PYQs, students must adopt the right strategy to have high level of accuracy in the Prelims exam. The students must keep the following things in mind.
- First concentrate on the basics/static part to have deeper conceptual understanding. Some of the questions in Prelims 2023 such as Components of Capital Market, Sterilization operations etc. were directly asked from the static part.
- Students must identify some of the repetitive themes in the previous year papers. Some of these include Role of RBI (Prelims 2018, 2021 and 2022), FDI (Prelims 2020, 2021 and 2022), MSP (Prelims 2018, 2020 and 2023), Exchange rate management (Prelims 2020, 2021 and 2023)
- Economy is a dynamic subject and hence requires integration of current affairs with the static part. For example, In Prelims 2023, around 6-7 questions out of 18 questions were directly asked from Current affairs. (Recent changes in Definition of MSMEs, Policy rate hikes by Central Banks, InVITs, CBDC etc.)
- Students must develop skill of linking one chapter/topic to another. For example, impact of US Fed Bank Policy on Bond Yields in India (Prelims 2021 and Prelims 2022), Effect of RBI’s Monetary Policy tools on Exchange rate (Prelims 2019 and Prelims 2022).
- Students must focus on important trends such as India’s Bilateral Trade (Prelims 2020 and 2023), Tax-to-GDP Ratio (Prelims 2017), Fiscal Deficit (Prelims 2017), GDP Growth rate (Prelims 2011) etc.
- Integrate Budget and Economic Survey into preparation as questions are directly asked from these sources- Interest Coverage ratio (Prelims 2020), Public Debt.
Basava Uppin
Faculty - Economy
Rau's IAS Study Circle
