NEW DELHI – Millions of struggling Indian brands and investors have the long-awaited festive season from October to December to save them from the coronavirus disaster.
But spending would possibly be the last thing on the minds of many Indians who lost their jobs or businesses to the pandemic crisis, and tension rises for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do more to regain the momentum of expansion that, at 8. 2% in 2016-17, has made India one of the fastest-developing primary economies.
The Hindu celebrations of Dussehra, Diwali and Durga Puja that continue the Christmas and New Year holidays are an opportunity to splurge on beloved pieces such as gold, houses and cars, as well as clothing, smartphones and electronics.
This year will lack the same bomb and old glasses, given the need for mask and the social estating of the pandemic that is still unleashed and there is still no vaccine available.
The government began to ease a strict two-month blockade in June, but companies still account for only a quarter to a fifth of the same visitor base and consumers are scarce, said Praveen Khandelwal, general secretary of the Confederation of Indian Merchants.
In August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced $1. 46 trillion in infrastructure projects to spur economic collapse and $2 billion to modernize the country’s overburdened fitness care system.
This follows a $1. 7 trillion ($22 billion) economic stimulus package announced in March, which adds cereal and lentil rations to 800 million people, or about 60% of the world’s most populous country at the moment.
Other grants included a large monetary subsidy of 6,000 rupees ($80) per year for 86 million deficient farmers and loose cooking fuel bottles for 83 million deficient people by the end of September.
The economy returned through an unprecedented 24% in the April-June quarter, and some other slowdown is expected for July-September.
The government will have to do more, Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee said, as direct transfers of money for the deficient and others seriously affected by prolonged blockade. India’s pandemic aid accounted for only about 1% of its GDP, he said, compared to the US Package in March of about 10% of its GDP.
The crisis is over: the number of coronavirus cases in India has increased from one million in mid-July to 6. 3 million in less than 3 months and the number of deaths reaches 100,000.
Modi’s administration, however, is suffering to push for more stimulus measures, given the monetary demands to combat the pandemic, in addition to army tensions with China along a disputed border in the mountainous Ladakh region, where both sides have accumulated tens of thousands of troops.
Defense analysts estimate that India may want up to one billion rupees ($ 13 million per day) to operate its military device at an altitude of 16,000 feet (4875 meters) if the two countries fail to disable their face-to-face from various months. .
The blockade imposed at the end of March has charged more than 10 million impoverished migrant workers for their jobs in cities. Many have made intense trips to their villages and villages and now face the terrible experience of seeking to return to their factory jobs.
“There’s almost no work,” said Ram Ratan, 46, who worked in a printing space before returning to his village in April. “We wandered around, looking for a steady job, but the top factories probably wouldn’t let us in. “
Mansoor Ansari is one of many employees who wait every day in what is known as a “work roundabout” in a commercial area, hoping to be cared for by employers.
Before the pandemic closed, Ansari had a stable job at a clothing factory in the commercial city of Manesar, near New Delhi, and earned $200 a month, he said. a village in the state of Eastern Bihar.
When the Ansari plant closed, he joined a caravan of people who walked several miles before jumping in overcrowded platform trucks to get home.
Unable to paint there and take on more debts, after restrictions were lifted, Ansari joined the legions of staff returning to Manesar.
Deshraj, who uses a name, lost his job as a waiter at a place to eat on the roadside in Surat, a city in western India known for cutting and polishing diamonds, in the spring and took over agriculture in his village. But unusually heavy rains in April interrupted the harvest.
“This is a common story in villages where crops have been destroyed by rain, leading others to commit suicide,” said Raja Bhaiya, who runs a non-governmental organization to help farmers.
Compared to the scale of needs, government assistance “mild,” Raghruram Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, said in a Linked In article. He compared to such an aid to a tonic.
“When the disease is overcome, it can help a patient get out of bed faster in poor health,” Rajan said. “But if a patient has atrophyed, a stimulus will have little effect. “
The government argues that the worst is.
Agriculture as a whole is developing at a rate of 3. 4%. With intelligent monsoon rains, India can succeed in a record 301 million tons of food grains, adding wheat, rice, oilseeds, lentils and mustard, in fiscal year 2020-2021, four million tons more than in 2019-20.
Key sectors such as coal, oil, gas, metal and cement have been recovered, government-leading economic adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian said.
“In a V-shaped recovery, it is imaginable that the slope (uphill) is not at all times exactly the same as that of the fall, which is drastic,” he said.
Another positive aspect: national brands are benefiting from a tendency to boycott reasonable statues of Hindu deities made in China, festive LED lighting fixtures and electronics that flooded the market, in favor of manufactured products, Khandelwal said.
For India’s approximately 70 million traders, employing some 400 million people, recovery can come very soon. They cross their finger and look to let their hopes rise too high in the run-up to the holiday.
Sanyam Jain, 24, and his brother Ankit Jain, 31, owned 3 clothing outlets in New Delhi and its suburbs, with a store value on average of more than $25,000 a month before closing.
They have closed a store and would be happy to sell even a portion of their stock this year.
“It has brought us no relief, ” said Ankit Jain.
Sales sometimes increase by 20-25% during the holidays, said Nitin Makkar, who has a shop in Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi, the capital. “I don’t have those hopes this time, because other people can just buy the essentials and avoid luxury goods. “
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AP Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India, contributed to the report.
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