COVID-19 and Government Policies: Impact on Life and Livelihoods

in India

Vikas Rawal
November 27, 2020
COVID infections in India and the
Lockdown
COVID infections in India

Figure 1: Number of active cases in the total number of active cases, India

• Massive under-reporting
• Because of lack of testing facilities
• Deliberate prevention of testing by the governments
• Replacement of RT-PCR test by antigen tests which are known to give a large percent of false
negatives
Imposition of the Lockdown

• The central government announced a nation-wide lockdown when the country had just
about 500 known cases of COVID infections and these were mostly concentrated in a few
States.
• The lockdown was imposed indiscriminately across the entire country including not just
large cities where COVID cases were concentrated but also in smaller cities, towns and
villages.
• In April and May, the Indian strategy to contain the spread of COVID infections was largely
based on coercion and policing to force people to stay indoors even in areas where COVID
infections had not been reported, and with complete disregard to constraints people from
poorer sections of the population, with precarious access to livelihoods, considerable threat
of food insecurity and lack of decent housing conditions, were going to face in staying
indoors for a prolonged period.
• The lockdown continued for about 10 weeks.
• It was withdrawn when the cases were still rising and the peak was still far away.
Geographical Spread of COVID Infections, Nov 19

• With inter-state travel rising after

the lockdown was lifted at the
end of May, the spread of COVID
infections not only saw a steep
rise but also spread across the
entire country. Over the next few
months, the COVID infections
reached every nook and corner
of the country.
Imposition of the Lockdown

• The central government announced a nation-wide lockdown when the country had just
about 500 known cases of COVID infections and these were mostly concentrated in a few
States.
• The lockdown was imposed indiscriminately across the entire country including not just
large cities where COVID cases were concentrated but also in smaller cities, towns and
villages.
• In April and May, the Indian strategy to contain the spread of COVID infections was largely
based on coercion and policing to force people to stay indoors even in areas where COVID
infections had not been reported, and with complete disregard to constraints people from
poorer sections of the population, with precarious access to livelihoods, considerable threat
of food insecurity and lack of decent housing conditions, were going to face in staying
indoors for a prolonged period.
• The lockdown continued for about 10 weeks.
• It was withdrawn when the cases were still rising and the peak was still far away.
Infection and Distress Deaths
Infection Deaths
• Known deaths due to COVID-19 infections till date about 135,000.
• A large number of persons who died due to various illnesses not tested for COVID.
• Likely mortality of persons with COVID-19 infections is likely to be much higher.

Distress Deaths
• In addition, large number of deaths due to various kinds of distresses. Including
• hunger and starvation,
• suicides by people under economic distress or psychological distress,
• inability to reach medical facilities,
• violence and crime,
• consumption of harmful substances because of non-availability of alcohol and other addictions,
• road accidents of migrants fleeing from cities.
• We tried to record these from media reports during the period of the lockdown. But had to
give up eventually as the reporting was very partial.

Excess Mortality
• Excess mortality is the only way to measure the real toll COVID-19 had on human life.
• Unfortunately, poor systems of civil registration of deaths will be a problem in countries
like India.
Impact on the Economy
Economic contraction
Fiscal situation

Figure 2: Central Government Expenditure and Gross Tax Revenue as Percentage of GDP, 2011-12 to 2019-20

Source: Surajit Mazumdar

Fiscal sitation

Item April-June 2020-21 July-Sep 2020-21

(Q1) (Q2)
Gross Tax Revenues -32.6 -13.1
Corporation Tax -23.3 -46.1
Income Tax -35.9 -10.1
GST Total -35.2 -1.3
Customs -61 -23
Excise -4.3 58.4
Assignment to States -9.8 -22.6
Total Expenditure of the Central 13.1 -13.5
Government

Source: Surajit Mazumdar

Impact on Livelihoods
Impact on Livelihoods

• While the nation-wide lockdown did not achieve very much in terms of containing the
spread of infections, it created a serious crisis of livelihoods.
• It also forced an unprecedented level of movement of migrant workers, as the fear of grave
food insecurity and economic distress forced them to flee to their native villages.
Impact on Employment

• India was already under the grip of a

massive increase in unemployment over
the last few years because of effects of
demonetisation (2016) and overall
economic slowdown.
• The lockdown created an unprecedented
crisis of unemployment.
• The official surveys of employment are not
yet available. But other surveys have all
shown massive drop in levels of
employment across all categories of
workers.
• The data shown in this graph are from
CMIE surveys, which are national surveys.
These understate the problem because of
poor coverage of informal sector and
women workers in these surveys. Despite
that, the fall in levels of work participation
rate is found to be very high.
The Migrant Crisis

• Anything between 3-10 million persons of migrant workers and their family members are
estimated to have fled the cities because of food insecurity and loss of employment.
Rural Employment Guarantee Programme

• The law provides a guarantee of 100 days of employment to all registered rural families.
• In practice, a supply-driven public works programme.
• In 2019-20, on average, about 48 days of employment were provided to only 38 per cent of
registered rural families.
• As of March 2020, 144 million rural households were registered.
• Between March 31 and November 19, 2020, about 18 million new rural households applied
for enrolment in the programme.

Figure 3: Persondays of employment provided under MGNREGS programme per month

Food Security

• India is the country with largest number of undernourished and food insecure people in
the world.
• As per FAO data, in 2017-19, 32% of India’s population — a whopping 489 million people –
suffered from moderate or severe food insecurity.
• This is likely to have gone up sharply this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the
lockdown.
Food Security

Figure 4: Public stocks of foodgrain in India

Food Security

• Public Distribution System under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) is the main
government programme for food security. It covers about 2/3rd households.
• Government announced a new programme, PMGKAY, through which a matching about of
grain entitlement was given to beneficiaries of NFSA. However, the actual distribution of
subsidised foodgrains has been much lower.
• Also, a significant proportion of food insecure households remain outside the net of these
programmes.

Figure 5: Public distribution of food during the COVID-19 pandemic

Agriculture: Disruption of supply chains

Figure 6: Weekly arrivals of selected commodities in regulated agricultural markets

Prices

Figure 7: Prices of selected crops in agricultural produce markets

Education
Educational institutions closed since March

School meals stopped

• School meals provided to elementary school children in public schools.
• As per the last estimates, about 116 million children get school meals.
• Day-care centres (anganwadi centres) for infants and pregnant women closed.
• Major implications on child and maternal nutrition, particularly for poor.

Online education is too exclusive

• As per the NSS 75th round data for 2017, among persons aged 17 years or above who are
either currently enrolled in an educational institution or were enrolled until the last year, 67
per cent (77 per cent among rural and 46 per cent among urban) did not know how to
operate a computer. Of these young people, 59 per cent (69 per cent among rural and 38
per cent among urban) did not know how to use internet.
• Lack of computer literacy is particularly widespread among students (and recent students)
coming from marginalised groups: 76 per cent among dalits, 76 per cent among muslims,
and 79 per cent among adivasis. While 62 per cent men in the group did not have computer
literacy, the proportion was 72 per cent for women.
The Assault on the Rights and The
Resistance
The Assault on the Rights of Workers and Peasants

• Taking advantage of the restrictions and limited possibilities of mass protests

• Government passed three major laws related to agriculture with the objective of opening up
agriculture for greater penetration of corporate capital
• Introduced major changes in labour laws for greater flexibilisation and curtailing fundamental
rights such as an 8-hour working day.
Resistance