The former governor of Reserve Bank Of India, Mr Raghuram Rajan pointed out a plan of 3 points to give a restart to the Indian Economy to get India out of COVID-19 pandemic’s grip.
What to choose between life or livelihood?
Generally, other people are much aware of the COVID-19 situation as they are much closer to them, they are directly contemplating with them but I think it is not a thing of making a choice between saving lives and saving livelihoods in the Indian economy, you have to figure out both of them. You need to draw a line of preference, as said by Raghuram Rajan.
The first quarter of the fiscal year 2020 has described COVID-19 pandemic as the worst economic Emergency for India since independence but the public decisions are all about compromises. Dealing in context between Saving lives and saving livelihoods. Now the biggest question arises, what should be done from the end of the Indian financial system to draw a line ?. The lockdown has been extended to the 3rd of May 2020, but what after that? Should we go through fully opened or not?
Why choose both life and livelihood?
Well, obviously people on the ground know far more about the situations than me but I think that it is not a thing of making a choice between saving lives and saving livelihoods in an economy, you have to figure out both of them.”
Obviously, we cannot stay in lockdown forever as that would be focusing on saving lives and if we don’t have livelihoods then it might impact our lives as well. Moreover, we don’t have well-established distribution channels that would reach everyone in India. Especially the poor and needy ones. Generally, they are left out of the distribution system.
We need to have a trade-off where we could focus on both lives and livelihoods and try to figure out a little bit of both things at the same time to sustain and uplift the economy. We should be focused on restarting the economy. In this context, firstly we need to figure out the least vulnerable areas and then to the most Vulnerable areas.
According to Raghuram Rajan, nothing should be decided only on the principle of finance. Firstly we should be focused on protecting the real wealth of the economy. It means protecting the health of the economy as we all know they are the main source of the economy’s wealth.
Truly said by Raghuram Rajan sir. Obviously, our main focus should be on the health of our people. We can figure out our fiscal deficit later as well. If you play with the health of your real economy then there would be nothing to go back to.
The final need of the hour
This is the time of protecting social harmony because you want people to believe that their government is really looking after them. This would create a sense of satisfaction among them. Not only people or the general public but also protecting the corporate and financial sector as well to assure them that when the economy would start up again, there would be a healthy start of structure that they could restructure themselves.