What challenges may arise if government announces lockdown again?
-Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: A many countries in the world are still announcing lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus. Lockdowns are effective to stop the spread of the deadliest virus but another side it crushes the economy and GDP of the nations also.
The government of India has already announced five back-to-back lockdowns last year to reduce the transmission of the virus and then the economy crashed immensely.
The economy and GDP affected immensely in last year’s lockdown and created huge challenges for the government.
More challenges may arise if the government announced a lockdown again. The huge challenge for the present moment is to save the economy of the nation and GDP.
A new lockdown may affect the construction sector, education sector, Small, medium, and large businesses, and many other sectors.
India’s construction industry is one of the largest employments creating industry and it is most affected industries in the coronavirus pandemic period also. Low selling of corporate offices and houses damaged the real estate sector.
Thousands of labours and professionals are working in this field and coronavirus lockdown damaged this industry immensely. The Indian construction industry had affected by the coronavirus in a variety of ways. After the first lockdown of 21 days – thousands of migrant workers – who were employed in the construction industry – packed their bags and went back home.
According to Real estate developers – The construction industry is already facing the scarcity of workers and if a new lockdown is imposed then it could be an unbelievable challenge for the Construction sector.
The supply chains of critical input materials used in construction were also disrupted with varying bans across inter-city and inter-state travel. Owing to decreased production, commodity prices also increased to some extent, increasing the financial burden on builders.
According to official data available – Barring agriculture, all other major indicators of growth in the economy were massively impacted. The worst affected sectors were construction (–50%), trade, hotels, and other services (–47%), manufacturing (–39%), and mining (–23%). It is pertinent to note that these are the sectors that generate the maximum new jobs in the country.
The education sector is also on the list of affected sectors by a coronavirus. With huge courage – The state governments are resuming educational activities at schools and colleges because some students are not able to study online due to financial conditions.
The education experts believe some students are not following the instructions and orders of teachers during the online study so the online study is somewhere good and somewhere bad. Poor students are not able to buy the computer or laptops to study so poor students have only option to study in schools or colleges. New lockdown could affect the education of poor students. “Online education is second option to study but the first option must be schools and colleges for education,” teachers said.
After the vaccines, vaccination drive, and high recovery rate – people just started to travel across the nation. In India, there are many states, towns, and villages – which are depended on the travel and tourism industry.
The tourism industry is drastically affected by the coronavirus. Many countries in the world are dependent on travel and tourism.
The government of some countries has already restricted the entry of travelers into the nation to prevent the coronavirus. The tourism industry contributing majorly to the economy of the country but a new lockdown may affect the tourism industry immensely.
The government of India is taking necessary steps to curb the spread of coronavirus in the nation. The government had announced the Rs 20 lakh crore package under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan in May to tackle the Covid crisis.
The government of India had already announced a total of five lockdowns (70 days) to curb the spread of coronavirus.
According to a media report, the government announced Rs 20 lakh crore package to cover the land, labor, and liquidity-related issues. The giant package was used to fill the needs of the 130 crore Indian citizens and serve the small businesses including, fishermen and farmers.
The Indian economy was expected to lose over ₹32,000 crores (US$4.5 billion) every day during the first 21-days of complete lockdown, which was declared following the coronavirus outbreak.
India’s GDP growth was already slow before the pandemic and coronavirus lockdown slow it more.
Various lockdown/unlock phases in India due to COVID-19.
- No. Phase Start End
1 Pre-lockdown (PL) 1 January 20 24 March 20
2 Lockdown 1.0 (LD 1.0) 25 March 20 14 April 20
3 Lockdown 2.0 (LD 2.0) 15 April 20 3 May 20
4 Lockdown 3.0 (LD3.0) 4 May 20 17 May 20
5 Lockdown 4.0 (LD4.0) 18 May 20 31 May 20
6 Unlock 1.0 (UL1.0) 1 June 20 30 June 20
7 Unlock 2.0 (UL2.0) 1 July 20 31 July 20
