Boosting Resilience and Igniting Economic Recovery

Book excerpt: The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a threat to human lives but also to their livelihoods. Half of the world's population are under lockdown. Hundreds of companies in the sectors like aviation, travel-tourism & hospitalities are facing huge setbacks. Millions of jobs are getting slashed every week. The lower income group, with limited resources to fall back on in a disastrous situation like this, are the worst hit. The daily wage earners, the gig economy workers & the migrant workers are on the verge of falling back to poverty. India as an emerging economy have been trying hard over the past few decades to uplift the lives of hundreds of millions of underprivileged citizens. The slower the economic growth the tougher it gets to bring people out of poverty, which have been anyway de-accelerating for last couple of years due to various reasons. This pandemic has brought all economic activities in the country to a complete halt, and thus is pooling the economy down towards an unprecedented scenario of economic contraction. Coupled with striking natural calamities in the different parts of the country, the present days have become very challenging for the lives & livelihoods of the citizens, as much as a third of them in one way or the other. Welfare of the underprivileged may not be a charity as it has been always portrayed, rather supporting the livelihoods of these large sections of the economy & society is the key to faster economic recovery & returning back to sustainable growth.