Numbers are not much important: Many aspirants start mugging up the percentage change, numerical data etc. Remember one thing, they want you to be smart human not a dumb Robot. Try to focus on the trends and patterns rather than engulfing numbers.
Remember the importance of first chapter: Read first chapter with utmost care because this part contains brief summary of whole survey. You will get a chance to identify the part to be focused on.
Divide it in different parts: The best and efficient way to read survey is divide it in different sections and each section contains different sector facts. Like if you are preparing for UPSC then divide whole survey for three sections.
Section 1-Society, Role of women, Urbanization, Social Empowerment etc.Section 2-Welfare schemes and their analysis, Schemes for vulnerable sections, Government initiatives, Human resource, Hunger, Malnutrition, poverty, etc.Section 3-Agriculture, Subsidy issues, sustainable tech initiatives, Macroeconomics tangibles, and intangibles, etc. And more topics that are included in your syllabus and asked in exams.a. Mug up all stuff that is in boxes-This is most important you should mug up all the stuff that is in boxes because many times question the stuff put in the box have been directly asked in exams. So read them properly.b. Read it at least two times-As we know we are not Einstein or Newton that only one reading can remember whole life. It is not important to read the survey again and again because it is time-consuming. So as I previously said if you divide it into sections and make your own notes then only that notes will be helpful. So instead of reading whole survey read only your own notes again and again will be less time consuming and easily memorable.
Don’t mug up all graphs and charts: Survey contains a heck of graphs, charts and plots . You don’t need to put all of them in your head. Just try to prioritize things up and select some important things.
Bottomline
Read the Economic survey but don't get too engrossed in it. This year the survey is more like a doctoral thesis.
Avoid useless information and loads of data if you want to score well in the exam.
Make a simple one pager note of every chapter jotting down key takeaways
Pay heed to schemes and policies mentioned in the Survey. For eg. Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets (S4A)
Focus on the bigger picture, trend, arguments, analysis.