It is natural for the captains of industry and commerce, along with virtually everyone else, to be concerned about the prolonged lockdown. Though there is a lack of unanimity about the exit route, whether it should be sequential or at one go, everyone is agreed that it may be time to revive the economic engine.
Business papers have quoted several industrialists to emphasize the need for an early decision on reopening the economy. Anand Mahindra, the widely respected head of the Mahindra and Mahindra Group, to suggest that a ‘calibrated lifting of the lockdown…will be painfully slow…’ Instead, he wants a comprehensive reopening. Another industrialist has suggested the need to work within ‘a new normal’, warning that without an early reopening we might be risking an economic depression. Likewise, a number of industrialists have sought relaxation from the stringent lockdown conditions, however conceding that the government alone is in a position to take a considered view after ‘balancing lives and livelihoods’.
There being no two opinions that the economy cannot remain shut for a considerably long period beyond the current phase which is due to end on May 3rd, what the government needs to take into account is that the scientific community is sharply divided over how long the threat from the coronavirus is set to persist. Some experts argue that it will continue till the middle of next year. The crucial factor again is the development of a vaccine to kill the virus which, again, if the frenetic research is successful cannot be ready for mass use till September next year.
The point is that willy-nilly the government will have to take steps to revive the economic engine regardless of whether the threat from the pandemic has been fully or partially extinguished. As a migrant daily wager put it most succinctly early on in the lockdown: if corona does not kill, hunger will. Given the huge additional burden on the government finances, given the loss of huge revenue on account of the lockdown, the government will have to urgently take steps to restart the economy on May 4. Only red zones can remain in isolation. However, one concedes that presently some of the industries are indeed located in the urban and semi-urban areas which are under the severe grip of the virus.
How the government will overcome that huge hurdle is for it to decide, but without pushing the economy into a deep recession there can be no further blanket extension of the lockdown.
