New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS): Wikipedia has for the first time become an information source for the Economic Survey and netizens are asking if the next step will be WhatsApp.

The Economic Survey, which is a venerable document for economic students and economy watchers released by the Finance Ministry and authored by the Chief Economic Adviser, is used all over the world for citing any data for the Indian economy and as the most authentic data point on India.

This is apparently the first time that the Economic Survey has mentioned Wikipedia as source of data. One netizen asked if next time it will be WhatsApp! Wikipedia is a source created by volunteers but may not be source for a country's Budget making exercise.

In what can only be termed as a dilution of standards and data, the Economic Survey under Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has quoted Wikipedia on two data points.

Wikipedia has been quoted in the Survey on page 150-151 for a chart on banks in the top 100 which seeks to connect a country's GDP with the number of banks in the global top 100.

The second chart also uses this data for a comparison on the top countries with global banks. The Survey points out that in 2019, when Indian economy was the fifth largest in the world, India's highest ranked bank was ranked a lowly 55 in the global top 100 and was the only bank in that list.

Countries like Sweden and Singapore, which are respectively about one sixth and one eighth the economic size of India, have thrice the number of global banks as India does.

Netizens have pointed out that India's Economic Survey is also powered by Wikipedia, which is edited and created by volunteers. When was the last time a government document relied on Wikipedia, netizens asked.