Suppose u r an economist making post covid plans for the growth of the economy to bring back indian economy on track
Answers
The covid-19 epidemic is the first and foremost human disaster in 2020. More than 200 countries and territories have confirmed effective medical cases, caused by coronavirus declared a pandemic by the WHO. Recent growth rate case globally has accelerated to more than 12,00,000 covid-19 confirmed cases and more than 66,000 deaths till April 1, 2020.
As we have already acknowledged that India is a developing economy, it is stated as an economy passing through demand depression and high unemployment, with 21-day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 23, 2020, it would slowdown the supply-side, accelerating the slowdown further and jeopardising the economic wellbeing of millions.
With an increasing number of coronavirus cases, the government has locked down transport services, closed all public and private offices, factories and restricted mobilization. Based on recent studies, some economists have said that there is a job loss of 40 million people (MRD report) in the country, mostly in the unorganized sectors.
In this scenario, they are predicting that India would go into recession affecting the unorganized sector and semi-skilled jobholders losing their employment. It may also likely surface that at this time of eroding trust within and between countries – with national leadership under pressure from growing societal unrest and economic confrontations between major powers if we refer to the times of Ebola crisis in Africa.
The labour sector under the MGNREGA, 2005 are worst impacted as they are not provided jobs due to lockdown, most of the labour sectors are associated with the construction companies and daily wage earners. Travel restrictions and quarantines affecting hundreds of millions of people have left Indian factories short of labour and parts, just-in-time supply chains and triggering sales warnings across technology, automotive, consumer goods, pharmaceutical and other industries.
If we refer to the recent measures announced by the government and the RBI to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, as said by the RBI governor, these are only for short term and may not deliver the desired results as the problem is severe and has been further aggravated by the lockdown.
The quarterly GDP growth has consistently fallen since Q4 of FY18. If there is a deviation in Q4 of FY19, as shown in the graph below, it is because the National Statistical Office (NSO) revised its data on February 28, 2020, drastically cutting down growth rates in the first three-quarters of FY19 (from 8% to 7.1% for Quater1; from 7% to 6.2% in Quarter 2 and 6.6% to 5.6% in Quarter 3.
Referring to the recent happenings and data, the unorganised sector excluding this likely to suffer a great downfall in the coming days as the job generation is going down in an alarming rate with the prolonged lockdown and weak GDP.
With the commencement of 2020-21 financial year the effects of coronavirus have affected the stability of the economy of 150 countries - jeopardising their lifestyle, economy, impacting business and assumption of common wellbeing which we had taken for granted. The lockdown has adversely have affected service sector like banks, restaurants, food vendors, and food delivery providers at par with providing health safety and medical sustenance, we should also have to think about the health of the sickening economy by mobilizing the resources and make plans of job creation and job continuity.