The lockdown in order to curb the spread of the Covid-19 in India is going to have a lingering impact on lives, not just livelihoods, a working paper by two prominent economists has said, taking into consideration violence, starvation, indebtedness and extreme stress as consequences of the shutdown that was in place in the last two months.
The working paper titled Interim Report on India’s Lockdown, submitted to American non-profit research agency National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), analyses the lockdown psyche in the Indian context, its impact, as well as the administration’s response to mitigate these consequences.
Point to be noted here is that lockdowns, have been propelled across the world by the “enormous visibility” of Covid-19 fatalities. While in advanced economies, the cost of reducing these visible deaths is a “dramatic reduction” in overall economic activity, in India, “a developing country with great sectoral and occupational vulnerabilities, this dramatic reduction is more than economic: it means lives lost.
India’s nationwide lockdown was enforced first on March 25, before it was diluted in phases over the next three months.
Union government officials have said the lockdown was successful in slowing the spread of the disease and buying time to improve infrastructure. The government last month announced a ₹20 lakh crore relief package but analysts have said that the actual government spending in the package could be much lower.
