The Reserve Bank’s annual ‘Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy’ provides comprehensive database of macroeconomic and financial variables pertaining to national income, output, prices, money, banking, financial markets, public finance, foreign trade, balance of payments and select socio-economic indicators at varying frequencies since 1998. For a quarter century now, the publication is eagerly looked forward to by researchers, analysts and students.

2. The near real-time version of the Handbook is maintained on the Reserve Bank's ‘Database on Indian Economy (DBIE)’ portal (https://dbie.rbi.org.in) since 2009 for disseminating updated time series data. Over the years, it has undergone presentational improvements, including format changes for some tables, introduction of new tables, discontinuation of some of the tables, and modifications to the existing tables.

3. This Handbook for the year 2022-23, which is 25th in the series, contains 240 statistical tables, covering time series on a wide range of variables/indicators. Its electronic version is being released on the Reserve Bank’s revamped DBIE portal as a part of its next generation Data Warehouse, viz., ‘Centralised Information Management System (CIMS)’. which was launched by Shri Shaktikanta Das, Governor during the 17th Annual Statistics Day Conference held on June 30, 2023.

4. All Departments in the Bank, which generate macro-financial statistics, have been contributing to the Handbook, including its real-time version, regularly. This publication has been collated by a team in the Data Management and Dissemination Division (DMDD) in the Department of Statistics and Information Management (DSIM) under the overall guidance of Dr.A.R.Joshi, Principal Adviser and Shri Hemant Kumar, Adviser. The team has been led by Dr. Indrajit Roy, Director and comprised of Smt. Jolly Roy and Ms. Prabha Jadav, Assistant Advisers, Shri Srijan Hazra and Shri Satish Chand Meena, Ms. Ananya Roy, Managers, Shri Ajay Kumar, Assistant Manager and Ms. Pooja N. Nile, Assistant. Their sincere efforts at various stages in publication have enabled its timely release as well as the regular updation of its on-line version throughout the year.

5. We welcome comments and suggestions on the Handbook, which may be forwarded to the following address: The Director, DMDD, Department of Statistics and Information Management, Reserve Bank of India, C-9, 3rd Floor, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Mumbai 400051. Feedback can also be provided to us by e-mail or by accessing the feedback link available on the DBIE portal.

Sd/-
(O. P. Mall)
Executive Director
September 15, 2023