This ‘Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy, 2000’, the third in the series, is the continuation of the efforts made by the Department of Economic Analysis & Policy of the Reserve Bank of India to make available long time series of data on major macroeconomic and financial variables to researchers, analysts and other users at a single place. This volume contains 213 tables and includes a new section on time series data with fortnightly, weekly, irregular and daily frequencies. The Handbook can be viewed as one of the several steps taken by the Reserve Bank for improving transparency through data dissemination.

Inputs were provided by various Divisions of the Department of Economic Analysis & Policy and other Departments of the Bank, both in terms of primary data drawn from within the RBI and in terms of data collated from outside sources. The officers and staff involved in the preparation of this volume spent considerable amount of their time and energy in compiling and ensuring accuracy of the data. They deserve deep appreciation. The coordination of the work was undertaken in the Division of Econometrics, which served as a nodal point for planning and executing the preparation and publication of this volume. Dr. Mridul Saggar, Director, Division of Econometrics, supervised this task along with Shri D.P. Rath, Assistant Adviser. Smt. Rashmi Umesh, Assistant Adviser also contributed to this project at a later stage. The support by the staff members, particularly Smt. S.M. Kambli, Shri V.L. Pinto and Kum. R.M. Karia, is appreciated.

Shri M.R. Nair, Officer-in-Charge, Department of Economic Analysis & Policy provided dynamic leadership to this mammoth exercise.

Y.V. Reddy

Deputy Governor

December 29, 2000