Four days from now, India will complete two years of lockdown. Janata curfew was imposed on 22 March and Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a message to the nation at 8 pm on 24 March. He said, ‘To save India, to save every citizen of India… there is a complete ban on stepping out of the house from 12 o’clock tonight.’ The Prime Minister knew that this step was going to be costly. He also said that India will have to pay the economic cost of this lockdown, but at that time saving the people of the country was a big priority. However, today it is very difficult to say that anyone had any idea of how expensive this move was going to be.
The Prime Minister’s announcement was not even over that there was a stampede in the streets and markets of every city. People were busy buying entire shops and filling their houses, because they had less than four hours to spare and no one knew what would happen after that. Later, when the figures came, it was found that due to these four hours, the consumption of everyday items had increased by 80 percent in the last week of March. And, the next week, sales dropped by about 47 percent. However, after that, consumption picked up once again in the third week of April, and when the government announced to increase the lockdown, then again the sales of FMCG goods increased by almost two and a half times. But a large part of this buying and selling was going on sitting in homes or online.
Most of the people who take care of fitness nowadays keep track of how many steps they walk in a day. There are mobile apps to measure this and also a separate fitness band or activity tracker. A company running one such activity tracker released data that in the first 15 days of the big lockdown, the number of people walking in the country had fallen by 62 percent, that is, the steps were stopping.
But these activity trackers were not showing the complete picture of the country. Showing that, with the start of the lockdown, the country’s average step count would have multiplied. On the first day of the lockdown, its sound was visible at railway stations and bus stands in Mumbai and Delhi, then in the next few days lakhs of people traveling on foot, cycle, rickshaw and tempo or small vehicles on highways across the country. . The World Bank estimates that about 40 million people wandered from city to village in this way. Many of these covered hundreds of kilometres, while some traveled thousands of kilometers on foot or by bicycle.
The other side of this story is no less painful. The shutdown of all kinds of businesses in big cities and industrial areas directly affected their earnings. Big companies have suffered to a great extent. Although at many places there were pay cuts and layoffs at the same time, but it was very less in comparison to the total turnover. Then the work of big companies also got derailed because they started ‘work from home’ fast. But this was not the way for small and medium scale businessmen. Barring a few essentials, the shutters of other shops were closed, which did not open for months. Obviously, for how long and how will he continue to pay salaries to the staff who do not earn themselves? As soon as the lockdown started, 12 crore people became unemployed in a jiffy.
After a year, the situation was expected to improve that the second and third wave of Corona once again wreaked havoc. If the government figures are to be believed, then 23 crore people in India have gone below the poverty line. This is the first time since independence that the number of poor is increasing instead of decreasing.
Who was the biggest loser of the lockdown? In response to this, the names of hotels, restaurants, airlines, tourism, gyms, small businessmen and shopkeepers etc. Feather. Surprisingly, there is no definite figure of the number of these people engaged in the business of handicrafts. In different studies, their count is said to be from 70 lakhs to 20 crores. Corona forced at least 40 percent of these people to leave work and more than 20 percent of the people’s annual income remained only a quarter.
On the other hand, the latest employment figures are also showing that the sad days of the youth are not over yet. As soon as the first lockdown of the Corona period began, between April and June 2020, the unemployment rate among youth under 30 years reached about 35 percent. After that it was improving continuously, though it never went below 20 percent. But after the second wave of corona, that is, between April and June last year, it has again jumped to 25.9 percent. And, here too, unemployment among girls of the same age has reached 31 percent.
People struggling with unemployment and lack of income are now facing the threat of inflation. Especially, given the price of oil after the Ukraine crisis. Right now India is expected to get cheaper oil from Russia, yet crude oil prices are much higher than the government’s estimate. How inflation will reach the common buyer is not reflected only in the wholesale and retail indices. From mustard oil to packets of biscuits, the price of everything is increasing. That is, the burden on the pocket is increasing, but how the pocket will be filled, its arrangement is not visible.
(These are the author’s own views)